Catherine
by ZelinkSupporter
Summary: A Parody/Adaption of the video game "Ib" with the best ending possible.


In the early afternoon, under a gray sky… Catherine and her divorced parents were on their way to an art gallery…

"Did you remember everything Catherine?" Ms. Grande asked. "Oh! Do you have your handkerchief? You know, the one you got for your birthday? Keep it safe in your pocket, okay? Don't lose it!"

I walked into the museum with my divorced parents. I felt a soothing sensation as I entered.

"Well," said mother. "We're here."

She was a pretty woman. She had curly blonde hair and golden eyes.

"This is your first time in an art gallery, right, Cat?" she smiled. "We're here today to see an exhibition of works by an artist named Guertena… And they don't just have paintings, but sculptures… and all kinds of other creations! I don't doubt that even you'll enjoy it, Cat."

My father turned to us.

"Should we get to the reception desk?" Count Dracula asked.

Though he was a quiet man, he had the passion of a thousand fervent souls. We walked up to reception and my father began to inquire about today's schedule and exhibits. Behind the receptionist, I saw what appeared to be a fish head with a signature "G" and some text above it.

I was starting to get bored so I asked my mother if I could go on ahead and see the paintings.

"Hm? You wanna go on ahead?" Mother said with exasperation. "Really, Cat…"

She sighed and gave in.

"Oh all right," she said. "Just make sure you're quiet in the gallery, okay? Don't make a ruckus!"

Her stern look waned and the smile I knew and loved came round.

"Not that there's any need to worry about you, I suppose…" she said. "Don't cause the other visitors any trouble now!"

I went straight ahead to see the main exhibit. A large crowd was gathered around to see it. It looked like a big fish in the ocean eating something. I read a notice on the wall but some of the words I couldn't make out.

"Welcome to the World of Guertena," I read. "We truly thank you for ? today. We're currently holding an ? for the great artist Weiss Guertena. We hope you deeply enjoy the art of the late Guertena, whose creations carry such mystery and beauty both."

Next to the notice was a large painting of a red person apparently scolding a blue person. I couldn't read some of it, but it was called "A Well-Meaning ?". I moved down the hall and came across a beautiful sculpture of a delicate pink rose. I couldn't read the first word of the title, but it was "? Of Spirit".

"Beautiful at a glance, but if you get too close, it will ? pain," I read. "It can only bloom in ? bodies."

I wish I was an older Vampire so I could read more words… The next painting was "The Coughing Man". A little icky… I moved to the next room where I saw "Selfless Guard" and what appeared to be a landscape.

"Selfless Guard" looked like a white bird flying into the night sky. Down the hall was a row of exhibits, "? of ? and Stars". I couldn't see it clearly so I moved on. The next painting was "? Spirit". It was a mess but the one next to it, "Glass of ?", was cleaner.

I thought it looked like coffee. A boy was observing the next one, so I headed on over to the next painting, "Beach ?". I'd want to vacation there. Having seen all the paintings, I went back to the main entrance, but my divorced parents weren't there.

So I decided to head up from the entrance and I began to wander the halls. Guertena's paintings sure were odd. The first one I saw was "Lady Taking the Newspaper". I guess inspirations stems from different places for some artists.

The painting to the right of it appeared to be a hanged man. It mildly disturbed me. I couldn't get the exact name of it as there was a mortal with blonde hair and a coat staring deeply into it. I moved on to the next painting.

"? Towers" had a word I didn't know. The one next to it was a little creepy. A portion of a white face with a red background stared at me. It was called "Worry". I went down from the wall paintings to an open exhibit.

Inside the roped off area were three headless statues in blue, red and yellow dresses. It was called "Death of the Individual".

"In my opinion," he said. "What Guertena is saying here is that "the individual" lies in one's expression. Which is why these figures don't have heads, see? Don't you think so?"

It was kind of hard for me to answer him so I just plainly agreed with him.

"I guess so," I answered.

"Oho!" he exclaimed with surprise. "I'm glad you understand! Yes, I'm sure that's it!"

He went back to look at it some more. I moved on to the next open exhibit. It was of a fancy white couch with some red markings on it. "Reserved Seat" was the name of it. I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded.

I couldn't read the title of the "? On Table" painting. It looked like a rod was placed on a table. I went back up to continue exploring. The next painting was really pretty, but alas I didn't know one word.

"? Diamond," I read.

The portrait next to it was beautiful.

"What a beautiful woman…" said the observer. "But I wonder if she was someone real? They say Guertena didn't typically paint any real people."

I sensed hope and a little bit of desperation in what he said next.

"But there's always a chance you know?" he said. "This girl could be out there somewhere… Wow!"

The next painting was "Bitter Fruit", but I didn't have too many thoughts about such a nasty notion. An old couple was admiring the next exhibit. I smiled and giggled a little. It was cute seeing old people holding hands and admiring a work of art.

I had no idea what the next exhibit was. A big pink ball with swords sticking in it? A hipster couple was debating about its size and Guertena's popularity. The next one was quite a garish. It was called "Taste-Cleansing Tree" but I thought it really looked like a coat rack with a bunch of rainbow strings.

The woman admiring it pondered whether or not she could actually eat the exhibit… Odd. I moved down to see a majestic work. It looked like a blue woman melting into the ground. Unfortunately, I couldn't read its name.

I walked left and saw a mother and daughter looking at a picture of a cat. The little girl was shouting about how it's such a cute kitty and her mother scolded her. I giggled to myself and was reminded of my own mother.

The last painting in the hall was an eye with the name "Enlightenment". I guess it had something to do about seeing what cannot be usually seen. I moved on and came upon a gigantic mural. A flurry of colors and a painting of a lady in red to the right, a rose to the left.

I couldn't read the first word, but it was called, "? World". Suddenly, the lights began to flicker. The classical music stopped playing. Curiosity tugged at me to leave. I hurried back to reception, hoping my divorced parents would be there.

They weren't. The lights flickered again and all power was lost. I began to get scared. Where did everyone go? What's happening? I decided to look out the window to see what's going on. I gasped and moved back quickly as a blood red liquid poured down the glass.

I began to hear footsteps so I ran to the exit. It was locked. I was trapped in the museum. I headed up from the entrance. Looking at the other window, I saw a person pass by! I tried to find a way out, but could not.

As I walked away, someone banged on the glass. I ran away as fast as I could, my heart pounding in my chest. As I ran, I saw the painting of the fruit. It… fell from its frame. I don't know how, but it splattered onto the floor like a real fruit.

I was getting freaked out. I came upon the cat painting the mother and daughter were looking at before. Did the cat really just meow at me? I kept running. I was back at the large painting of "? World". There was something different about it, though.

Some blue paint was dripping out from under it. As I observed it, dripping sounds splashed the floor behind me and I turned around to see that it wrote out, "COME CATHERINE". I turned back to the blue paint to see a small message.

""Come down below Cat"," it said. ""I'll show you someplace secret"."

At this point, I was beyond frightened. I was terrified. Who was this person? I was scared, but at least I'd find company. I returned to the main entrance and headed straight. I decided to walk around more to see if there was anyone here.

I heard a cough. Could it be a person? I looked but saw no one. Was it possible… It was "The Coughing Man"? I shuddered and ran back. At the giant fish, I noticed a set of blue footprints. They were… leading into the painting?

I decided to follow it into the deep. I saw two paintings, a red and blue landscape with rocks. I headed to the side with the red painting and moved on. I saw a picture, "The ? Fish". I didn't know what it was so I continued on.

There was a light blue door. Reluctantly, I tried to open it. Surprisingly, it was locked. I headed back to the entrance. The exit was gone. The stairs leading down there just… vanished. This was getting really creepy.

I went to the other side. On the wall were light blue letters, all spelling "COME, COME, COME". I saw a table with a vase. In the vase was a pink rose. Not knowing what to do, I took the rose and pushed the table.

Behind the table was another blue door. This time, it was unlocked. My eyes met with a portrait of a woman with teal hair that was seemingly hanging out of the picture frame. Her eyes were in a closed but happy expression. I went up to read the notice.

"When the rose ?s, so too will you ? away," I read.

I really wish I understood what it meant. As I stepped to walk out, I felt something underneath my foot.

 _A blue key?_ I thought. _Could this be used to unlock the door?_

I picked it up. I thought I heard a sound behind me. I turned around and saw the woman's eyes were wide open. Her mouth was a Cheshire smile and shivers ran down my spine as I exited the room. Where all the light blue letters were before, blood red letters replaced them that read "THIEF, THIEF, THIEF".

There was a note left on the wall.

"You and the rose are ?," I read. "Know the weight of your own life."

I wish I understood that word. As I slowly walked on, more red letters splattered the floor in front of me. I ran from the scene back to the room with the locked blue door. I took a deep breath and unlocked the door.

The next room was green, like a forest. There were paintings of a ladybug, a bee, a butterfly and a spider. I saw a little speck moving on the floor. It was an ant and to my surprise, it started talking to me!

"I'm an ant," it declared. "I love paintings. My painting is especially cool. I'd like to see it again, but it's kinda far away."

I made it my mission to help the little guy out. I saw a notice.

""Beware the Edges"," I read.

 _What could this possibly mean?_ I thought.

I proceeded down the narrow hallway. Suddenly, a black arm shot out of the wall and hit me. I screamed and ran back. Where I got hit, I saw rose petals. I saw my rose began to fade. I saw that my very body began to look like a corpse and understood the value of the rose.

I heeded the instructions and walked in the center of the pathway, away from the walls. More arms shot out but were unable to reach me. Swallowing my fear, I reached the end of the narrow corridor. I saw the painting of the ant, which was easily removed from the wall.

There was also a bright green door, but it was locked, so I decided to head back to my little friend. Knowing where the arms were reaching out, I breezed by them. When I got back to the ant, he seemed entranced by the panting.

"Oh, that's my painting," he said, staring intensely at it. "It's just as cool as i remember it."

I guess he didn't want it back, so I kept it and moved on. The next four paintings I saw appeared to be the life cycle of a caterpillar. The egg stage was named "Prologue". The larva stage was "Chapter 1", following that was the chrysalis, "Chapter 2".

"Last Chapter" was of a fully grown butterfly. I sighed and wondered if I would ever get out of here alive and live to my last chapter. The door was unlocked so I went in. There was a fissure in the floor.

 _How was I to get across?_

I had an idea. I took the painting and laid it across the large crack in the ground. I hoped the ant painting was sturdy enough to support my weight. As I gingerly walked across, it ripped and cracked a little. I made it across without falling through.

As I entered the next room, I saw yet another picture. "Epilogue" pictured a spider eating the butterfly. What a sad end. I saw one of Guertena's sculptures there, the headless one with the red dress. In front of it, was a green key lying on the floor.

I picked it up. Without warning, the statue came to life. It approached me and I moved back. It roared and started to chase me. So many things were flashing before my eyes. So many questions raced through my mind. Everything was defying logic and normal sense.

 _How is this thing attacking me?_ I thought. _It has no head. How did it do that? How can it see me?_

"Utdes, God Of Misfortune," I whispered hurriedly.

I ran back across the painting. Thankfully, it broke as I ran across and the monster couldn't cross over. As I entered the next room, I heard the sound of glass breaking and shattering. I kept running and running.

"What happened to my painting?" the little ant asked.

I didn't answer him. I ran across the hall of black arms and came to the door. I stopped to catch my breath and unlocked the door. I came across a fork in the road and two great big eyes and ears. A fish-shaped indentation in the wall led me to believe it was a cat.

After I was finished looking at it, I decided to go right. It looked like a storage closet. Inside were many boxes, mannequins and clay heads. It was unnerving. I looked at a painting of a rose and wondered why it was such a prominent theme in this weird and whimsical world.

My thoughts were confirmed as I came across a letter on the floor.

"Materials Storehouse," I read.

Suddenly, one of the clay busts began shaking violently. It then came to life and started after me. I was frozen with fear. As it was about to fall on me, I came to my senses and moved out of the way. When it shattered, a wooden tail of a fish popped out.

I grabbed it and began to run out of there. I heard a dripping sound behind me and saw a yellow substance leaking from the ceiling. I ran from there and went to the next room. The same yellow substance splashed onto a column underneath a picture of a stick man with red eyes.

"Play hide and seek?" it read.

The stick man then disappeared and yellow buttons appeared on the other columns, each with a set of curtains. My only choice was to go down the row and find out which one it was. Before doing so, I checked the rest of the room.

At the top of the room was a painting called "A Chef's Talent". It featured a large cleaver chopping a fish. This must be where I get my fish head to complement my tail! I went to the first row and began exploring my options.

I pushed the first button, revealing a crescent moon behind the curtain. The room began to get a little dark. The next curtain revealed a naked woman's body, who screamed and slapped me. My rose was down to its last petals.

The next curtain revealed a sinister painting, but luckily it did no harm to me. I decided to check the next row. The next curtain revealed a music note, which, thankfully did not hurt me. I pressed the button on the one next to it and lo and behold, it was the stick man himself.

The same yellow substance splashed onto the column.

"Found me," it read. "You get prize."

I heard something drop on the floor and to my glee it was the fish head. It fell from the painting. Apparently, the chef did his work. I combined the head and tail, completing my wooden fish. I went back to the cat room and offered my fish to it.

Its eyes suddenly turned red and sinister. It let out several low meows as a path was made. In the next room, I saw a silly painting. It was a red smiley face with its tongue wagging back and forth. As I approached, it spit something at me.

I backed away from what it spit. Next to it was a small white painting. I looked closer and realized that there was a 9 in the center. I moved right and saw some yellow text on the wall.

"BEWARE OF LIPS," It read.

I saw red lips on the wall next to it. By now, I know to listen to what the signs say. I moved on ahead to the narrow hallway. I saw a letter on the floor.

"Just when you've forgotten…" It read.

 _Forgotten what?_

Remembering that shadowy arms had attacked me before in a hallway like this, I walked down the center of the aisle. A lone arm reached out and tried to grab me, but failed. At the end of the short hallway, something greatly disturbed me.

To my right were what appeared to be children hanging from red ropes from the ceiling. I didn't want to, but I had to, so I investigated. On closer inspection, they were actually only dolls. Suddenly, one of them dropped and lay splayed on the floor.

I went to check it out. An 18 was seen on the doll's clothes. A 9 and an 18. What could this mean? As I moved on, I came upon a yellow door. It required a password. X * X + X = ? I realized I needed a third number. I went back and saw there was another yellow room.

"The Liars' Room," the sign read.

I entered. In it were six portraits of black silhouettes. On the left side were silhouettes wearing green, brown and yellow. On the right side were silhouettes wearing blue, white and red. There was a door in between them. As I entered, I saw a lone white statue.

"There's an odd one out," an inscription read.

With this cryptic message, I headed back to the liars.

"Stand in front of the statue, go west 3 steps, then south 1 step," the green portrait read. "That's the answer!"

"Stand in front of the statue, go east 4 steps, then north 2 steps," the brown portrait read. "That's the answer!"

"The one in white speaks the truth!" the yellow portrait read.

"The only truth-speaker wears green!" The blue portrait read.

"Stand in front of the statue, go east 2 steps, then south 2 steps," The white portrait read. "That's the answer!"

"I agree with the one in yellow!" The red portrait read.

They were all lying, except one apparently. But which one? I thought long and hard and analyzed my situation. The answer was slowly coming to me. Since they were liars, whoever supports the other was helping build on their lie.

This ruled out red, yellow and white portraits, since the white one initially lied and red and yellow being supporters. Only green, brown and blue remained. I concluded that green must be lying since blue was backing him up, leaving brown the only one telling the truth.

I followed the instructions. At the statue in the next room, I stood in front of it, went right four steps and up two. There was a loose tile there, which I decided to pick up. There was a number on it: 4. With this, I was able to solve the puzzle!

The moment I read the number, I heard the sound of glass breaking, a large commotion in the other room. I quietly returned to the other room with the paintings. All the portraits were smeared with red paint. The text inscribed on each of them except the brown one changed.

"Liar!" it read.

I shuddered and ran back to the door requiring a password. 18 x 9 + 4 = ? I focused and began to write out the equation on my hand. Tracing out the multiplication, 18 x 9 = … 162. Add 4 and that's 166! I entered the code and the door opened.

I took a deep breath and forged on. The next room was full of tree sculptures. A lone apple lay on one of them. I took the wooden apple and thought about bringing it back to the red lips. Maybe it was hungry?

As I walked back through the narrow hallway, another black arm reached out and tried to grab me! This startled me as I thought no more would try to get me. I regained my composure and went on to the red lips. As I approached it, it began to speak.

"Hungry…" it said. "Give food… That food… Give to me…"

I placed the wooden apple in its mouth, hoping some good would come out of it. The mouth began to crunch and munch the apple.

"This tasty…" it said. "I let you pass now… Go through my mouth…"

The jaw stretched long enough for me to fit inside. Hesitating at first, I eventually went inside. The next room was filled with paintings of a guillotine. As I walked down the hall, I counted six paintings. The first five were of the guillotine slowly ascending.

By the sixth painting it was completely out of sight. I just knew there was something bad about to happen. I made an assumption that if I walked on, the blade would fall down on me and kill me. I froze for a few seconds, unsure of what to do.

Then I decided I must do it. I must brave the possibility of getting sliced in half like bread. I quickly ran forward to the end of the hall. I heard a heavy thud behind me as an extremely large blade crashed into the floor.

With wide eyes, I stared as it miraculously began to float back up, as if something was pulling the rope it as attached to. I moved out of the hallway and went down the stairs. The next hallway was red. I moved on.

When I got to the end of the hall, I saw a fleeting shadow glide by. Nonetheless, I kept my cool. There was a painting of a white bird blowing into what appeared to be a horn, resulting in a pink gust of air. It was called "Breathe".

I continued down the narrow corridor and met a red door at the end. Bracing myself for what lies beyond it, I opened the door. I came across a sculpture of a blue woman, resembling one of the sculptures I saw before the museum began to turn.

Strangely, the name of it was called "Uh". On the other side of the room was another sculpture, but of a red woman. It was named "Ah". How odd. In between them was a painting. I couldn't read the first word.

"? Pattern," I read.

It looked kind of messy. Above "Uh" were two other paintings. One was a portrait of what looked to be a man in a suit smoking. It was called "Smoking ?". I didn't understand that word. The other painting was called "Heartbeat".

A single green line, but when I approached it, it made a wavy motion, as if it were alive. Above "Ah" were also two paintings. One was "Heart Wounds". It looked like an arrow piercing the shadow of a realistic looking heart.

The other was a familiar painting. I remembered seeing this in the gallery! A man was admiring it, but I didn't get the title. I read it.

"The Lady in Red," it read.

As I moved away from it, I heard a noise behind me. The lady suddenly burst from the wall, crawling on the floor with her picture frame still intact. She roared and shrieked at me, sending chills down my back. I ran away from her but she just kept following me, occasionally roaring and trying to claw at me.

The only exit out of there was a locked red door. My situation was desperate. Tears were running down my face.

"I can't keep running from her forever," I whispered to myself.

Looking behind me, I saw she was still after me, dragging herself along the floor, shrieking unintelligible things. I screamed and at the same time, remembered something fell out of the wall with her. I don't know what, but it was my only hope.

I went back to where she was before and saw a red key lying on the ground.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" I kept saying to myself.

I ran to the red door with the lady in hot pursuit. The key worked and I slipped inside. I slammed the door shut and tried to open the next door. It was locked. The lady banged on the door, screaming at me. My sense of security faded as I realized I would be trapped in this tiny room with her if she came in.

I frantically searched the bookcases here for a key, or something, anything to get out! I came upon "The Girls in the Canvas", which I thought could serve me well if I learned something about them.

"The women here become very ? once they ? a desire for humans," I read. "They'll always ? chase things until they're satisfied, it seems. Anywhere, everywhere, to the ends of the earth."

The fact that I couldn't read some of the words coupled with this newfound knowledge made me fall deeper into despair. But I noticed something odd. There was no more banging on the door. I read on.

"But if they have one weakness," I read. "It's that they can't open doors on their own."

This was incredible. They really couldn't open doors on their own? I guess since they're stuck to their picture frame, they can't reach the doorknob. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued my search for the way out.

A book titled "Guertena" contained many of his works. I saw a scrap of paper sticking out from in between two books.

"HAVING FUN?" it read.

What a sadistic person, whoever left it there. "Art Galleries of the World", it had many nice pictures, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I was almost out of options, when I came upon "Moving Storybook: Written/Drawn by XXXX -Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois–".

It was different from the other books. It was drawn purely from crayon. I decided not to read it since I should really be finding my way out. Putting back, I saw that another book was sticking out. I decided to push it in.

I heard a clicking sound and the door was unlocked. I took a deep breath and went through. On the other side, I could still hear the lady crawling around. She was relentlessly going to pursue me. I moved on up and saw a painting of a turquoise vase. It was titled, "Eternal Blessings".

Underneath it on a table was the vase itself. I decided to place my rose in there. Suddenly, it sprang to life as petals were replenished. The rose as well as my physical appearance looked good as new. I felt a little more confident in my exploration of this terrifying world.

I knew there was some hope after all. From the vase, I moved right. I saw a painting… and a boy lying on the floor! The painting was "? Art", yet another word I didn't know. More importantly, was the boy on the floor.

I've seen him before! He was the one looking at the picture of a hanged man in the museum! I wanted to help him, but sadly I could do nothing. I walked up to him.

"…Ugh…" he uttered.

There were wounds all over his body and he was bleeding. He was clutching a key in his hand. I decided to finish his mission. To his right was another of those smiley face paintings with the tongue hanging out.

It didn't spit anything at me this time, though. I walked on. There was a headless statue in front of a red door. It didn't come to life and attack me. It just… stood there. I couldn't move it since it was too heavy, so I backtracked to the room with the vase and went left.

In the next room, I saw familiar notices placed on the wall.

"When the rose ?s, so too will you ? away," I read. "You and the rose are ? Know the weight of your own life."

Even though I couldn't understand some of the words, I got the basic gist of it. More importantly, there was yet another vase on a table. However, there was no rose, no water.

 _Could… Could that boy back there have lost his rose? Is that why he's weak and dying?_

As I walked on, I noticed sea blue pedals on the floor. These weren't mine. It must have been that boy's back there. But, who or what could have done this? I went down the hall, seeing more petals and eventually blood. At the end was a missing portrait. I read it.

"The Lady in Blue," it read.

My mind went blank. Fear started to crawl into the depths of my psyche. I started to shake. There was another woman crawling around on the floor, but where was she? I noticed there was a door and a window in this room.

I also noticed that the trail of petals led from the wall into the room. I couldn't see what was on the other side through the window. My only choice was to use that boy's key to unlock the door and go inside.

I took a deep breath and went in. I could hear someone noisily rummaging through something, muttering unintelligible things to themselves. I thought to myself that this was no doubt the lady. I crept forward and tried to get a better view.

As I approached, the noises stopped. I felt like she was looking right at me. I quietly crept back a few steps until I heard it resume its rummaging. I couldn't do this. This was too scary.

 _But wait! Would that boy back there have done what I tried to do? Would he have tried to save me?_

I decided to be brave. I ran out from my hiding spot and saw The Lady in Blue. Instantly, she leapt at me and shrieked. She tried to grab me, bite me, scratch me. I kept running, desperately searching for the boy's rose.

I dodged her and went back to where she was before. There, I saw a sea blue rose. I picked it up and got out of there. As I left the room, I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Woo ha-ha!" I said. "That was a rush!"

I heard the lady banging on the door futilely as I walked away. I chuckled to myself. Then I heard a crash. The sound of shattered glass rang out through the air. The woman broke through the window.

 _How could I forget there was a window?_

She resumed her pursuit and I ran as fast as I could out of there. I ran out of the room and slammed the door shut. I returned to "Eternal Blessings" and placed the boy's rose in the vase. It was instantly replenished and brand new.

I rushed back to him to see how he was doing. I approached him and gave him back his rose.

"…Mmm…" he replied weakly.

However, he eventually picked up his head. Beneath the mass of spiky dirty blonde hair was the face of a young mortal, probably around 18. He was slender and had blue eyes.

"…What's this?" he muttered. "The pain's gone… ah?"

When he saw me, his expression changed to surprise and he gave out a shrill "Eeek!" and ran backwards. His face turned stern.

"Wh… what is it _**NOW**_?!" he shouted. "T-There's nothing left for you to take, I tell you!"

I was visibly shocked at his reaction and he must have seen the look of fear in my face.

"W… wait… Dear me," he said. "Could you be… someone from the gallery…?!"

I nodded and he came forward, very relieved.

"So you are!" he smiled. "Oh, thank heavens! There's someone here besides me!"

-POINTLESS SCENE TRANSITION-

(A Few Moments Later)

"So I see…" he sighed. "You don't have any clue how things got to this point, either. It would seem we wound up in very similar situations, I have to say…"

He pulled out his beautiful sea blue rose and stared at it.

"Even down to these roses," he quietly spoke, expressing his sincere gratitude. "Wounds appear on me when my rose loses its petals… I thought I was a goner there. Thank you for getting it back. …Now, first things first… We'd better find a way out."

He gave a tired look.

"I think I'll go mad if I stay in this dreadful place for too long…" he said. "Ah, I still haven't asked your name. My, that was rude of me! Well, my name's Roxas. And you are?"

"My name is Catherine," I replied. "Cat for short."

"Cat, you say," he said to himself.

He walked a few steps.

"I can't very well leave a lady to wander into danger, no, no," he said. "…So I'll go with you! Okay?"

He turned to face me with a newfound confidence.

"Now," he said. "Let's go, Cat!"

We walked forward, but the silly painting spat out something that repulsed Roxas.

"HYEEEEEK!" he screamed.

I went up to mock-comfort him.

"…I… I was just a bit startled!" he said, trying to explain himself. "R-Really, that's all it was! Anywayyy… Let's keep going and watch out for such bizarre things as that!"

With that, we continued to the next room. The headless statue was still there, blocking the door. Roxas stepped to the side of it and was prepping his muscles.

"What a lousy place for this thing…" he grumbled. "Step back a tad, would you, Cat?"

I listened to him and stepped away.

"And…" he said. "Heave!"

Roxas pushed the statue, no longer obstructing our path.

"Ta-dah!" he said with a flourish and a bow. "Now we can proceed. All right, let's go!"

I felt safe with Roxas. He's kind of cute, too. With him, I felt like we could do anything. We looked at each other, then went through the door. In the next room, we were met with two sculptures and two portraits.

To the left were a portrait, "Grieving Bride" and a sculpture of a wicked black hand reaching from the floor, "Sorrowful Bride's Left Hand". To the right were, similarly, "Grieving Groom" and "Sorrowful Bride's Right Hand".

The portraits were certainly sorrowful, with very sad expressions painted on their faces. The bride was holding a bouquet of pink flowers. The hands were desperately searching, grasping the air above them. These must have been those arms reaching out to attack me.

We went to the next room. To our right, we saw a picture of coffee and cake. Not too important, but we were kind of hungry right now. We entered a room on the left side. It was a maze-like structure. A notice on the wall confirmed this, with the word "Labyrinth".

To our dismay, there were three headless statues walking around in red dresses. Luckily, they weren't too fast as we made our way to the back of the room.

"Check directly south from the red paint," a sign read.

Unfortunately, there were three red splotches of paint on the floor, so we had to check more than one. As we weaved through the labyrinth, we came across another sign.

"There's a trick to solving mazes…" it read. "Hug the right hand side and you'll reach the end eventually."

"Not a bad trick…" Roxas said. "But that doesn't help the ceiling being far too low for comfort. Not to mention those weird things loitering around… gives me the creeps. Be careful not to get trapped between them, okay, Cat?"

"I won't," I assured.

We went on. Another message was left on the wall.

"Do you like mazes?" it read.

Obviously Roxas didn't. We checked south of the red splotch of paint near that message. Luckily, this was the right one to check. We found a switch in the wall. We pressed it and ran from the room. We went through a hall on the left side of the labyrinth room, noticing some markings on the floor.

As we approached, they turned into eyes. Nine eyes were on the floor, darting back and forth.

"Yaaaah!" Roxas exclaimed, obviously not well adjusted to the environment. "What is _**THAT**_?! Gross is what! Why are there _**EYES**_ on the _**FLOOR**_ …?!"

We observed one of the eyes. It was pink and swollen.

"D…" Roxas asked. "Does this lone eye have a congestion problem?"

We walked past the eyes and came upon some paintings. A painting of a girl, some ice, a white snake and some scenery. On closer inspection, there's a hole in the snake's eye… We went through the door next to the paintings.

Inside, we found a cluttered mess. Stools and easels were everywhere. On a lone stool, on the far side of the room, was a blue bottle. We didn't know what it was, but it looked important. We made our way through the left side of the room, pushing stools aside.

We finally reached the bottle. It was a bottle of eye drops. We left the room and returned to the congested eye. It turned its gaze toward us, pleadingly. I applied the eye drops to it and its congestion was cured.

Suddenly, it moved up to a wall and stared intensely at it, in contrast to the other eyes darting back and forth. As it turned out, the wall was a different color than the rest of it and it was actually a secret passage!

At the end of the passage was a red glass ball. This must be what was missing from the snake painting. We left the passage and returned to the snake painting. We placed the ball in the snake's eye socket and the painting of the scenery fell down. There was writing on the back of the frame.

"Behind the big tree…" it read.

I remembered that there was a room near the coffee and cake picture. We hadn't explored in there yet. But fear gripped me. What was behind the big tree? Well, I had Roxas with me. He may not be the bravest guy out there, but he's my knight in leather armor.

As we entered the room, the lights began to flicker. It was a bit scary, especially with the weird sculptures in here. To the far left was "Wine Sofa", a sofa inside a wine glass.

"That doesn't look like very comfortable sitting…" Roxas criticized.

I had to agree with him. The next bust I couldn't read, but Roxas could.

"Melancholy," it read.

It was a head with curled hair and sunken eyes.

"Melancholy, huh," Roxas said. "Well really, who wouldn't be in this place?"

The next piece was "Puzzle". It appeared to be a multicolored skeleton. Roxas shot me a nervous look.

"I assume this is fake?" he said.

The last sculpture was "Feeling". It was a tree sculpture… vaguely resembling a person.

"You gotta be pretty clever to come up with this stuff…" Roxas noted.

There was something shiny behind the tree. It was a silver ring.

"Isn't this… a wedding ring?" Roxas said with a surprised look. "Now what would this be doing here?"

This must have been what the bride's hands were searching for. We returned to the marriage room. The hands were still desperately grasping at the air. I remembered that the left hand was where the ring went.

I placed the ring on the ring finger. Suddenly the hands stopped moving. The bride and groom smiled. The bride flung her bouquet out of the portrait, onto the floor. The names of the portraits and sculptures had changed as well.

Where it once said "Grieving" or "Sorrowful", now says "Blessed". We picked up the bouquet and left the room. At the far right side of the next room was a narrow corridor. There was a ghastly portrait, a blue spirit haunting the painting.

It had a jagged smile and wandering eyes. We approached it.

"Ehehehe, hehehehehe… Flowers… flowers're nice," it said. "Give me that there flower and I'll let you through… Ehehe… Ehehe… your flower, pretty please?"

I couldn't give him my rose. It was my life. As much as I liked the pretty pink flowers, I relinquished the bouquet.

"Ehehehe, thanks… It smells niiice… eheheh," it said as it smelled it. "Well, chowtime!"

It turned red and violently mashed down its jaws on the bouquet. I shuddered as I thought what would have become of me if I gave it my rose.

"Ahhh, that was good… eheheh," it gratefully told me. "Thank you, thanks so much… As promised, you can go through."

The frame swung open and the painting vanished.

"Just take this door in…" said the painting as he let us in. "Well, see ya… eheheheh!"

I looked at Roxas and he looked at me. We took a breath and stepped through. The next room was kind of cramped. We saw the next door immediately and went through. We were completely unprepared for the next room.

Two rows of mannequin heads filled up the entire hallway. If that weren't disturbing enough, there were three portraits of a vampire-like man hanging on the wall.

 _Now that's just offensive._

The first portrait was a light blue and the eyes were staring straight out. The second was red and the eyes were following us. The third one was green and the eyes had no pupils at all. The next room was terrifying.

As we walked up the room, we saw four portraits. All Ladies in Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. We didn't dare go near them. Taking a few steps back, we headed down the room instead. There were four headless statues but they didn't move.

One of the doors was locked, so we checked out more of the room. We peered through the window and thought we saw a frog-like shadow swim by. The door next to it was locked as well. To the right of them were three more portraits of Ladies in Blue, Red and Green.

We avoided them, of course. Heading up from there were three more portraits of Ladies in Yellow, Green and Blue. This was bad. I could sense something bad was going to happen soon. To the right of the lady in blue was a familiar painting.

It was "The Hanged Man". It was a man hanging upside-down from his feet with a red rope.

"Ah," Roxas noted. "This was one of the paintings in the gallery."

I was a little scared of it, so Roxas offered to investigate it. He inspected the man's clothing. "5629" it read. Perhaps he was a convict on death row. To the left of the lady in yellow was a headless statue, but it didn't move.

Above them were two more portraits of Ladies in Red and Yellow as well as another headless statue. Finally, the last two portraits in the room were Ladies in Red and Blue. Two doors to the left of us were locked and required passwords.

"How many paintings of women are there in this room?" the one to the right asked.

We counted 14. The lock clicked and the door was opened. We entered and saw a vase, a notice on the wall and a bookshelf. As we walked forward, we heard a crash of glass outside the room. One of the ladies must have broken loose.

"Please do not touch the displays," the notice on the wall read. "If by any chance you damage any exhibits, you will be comp sat n".

Some of the letters were missing. The bookshelf had a book titled, "Wonderful Days".

"The gallery is like an spooky amusement park with lots of strange things!" Roxas read. "It's so much fun playing here, the day was over before I knew it! Isn't it a fantastic place? Why don't you join me here? You'll be fine with all this company."

We had enough of this room and left to see the other room. One of the ladies in red was crawling around, madly searching for us. We hurried over to the room to the left of us.

"Enter password," it simply said.

It was a four digit code. It must've been the numbers on "The Hanged Man". We entered "5629" but nothing happened. The lady was getting closer to us. Then we remembered that the convict was hanging upside-down!

We then entered "6295" and the lock clicked. We ventured inside. Like the other room, it was simple. An easel with canvas, a stool and a table with a vase. We decided to push the table around a bit and ended up pushing it to the left side of the room when we heard a click.

Perhaps a door unlocked outside of the room? We left hurriedly to investigate. To our surprise, there was a mannequin head outside waiting for us.

"…Was this thing here earlier?" Roxas wondered nervously. "I… don't think it was…"

We headed to the right side of the room, dodging the lady who was crawling after us. The door was unlocked so we went inside. The only thing in there was a mirror at the end of the room. We looked at it and stared at our reflections.

Roxas wore a black coat. His pants were casual and loose. He also did not tuck the legs of his pants into his boots, though Roxas's "boots" more resembled black versions of street shoes. Roxas's cloak had slightly pointed shoulders and slightly close-fitting sleeves.

I looked at my outfit. Still tidy even after our rigorous encounters. A blue striped top and skirt with leggings underneath with my cape around my waist. We stepped away and began to make our exit when we saw something strange.

It was a mannequin head. It blocked our way out.

"What the…" Roxas asked. "When did this get in the room?"

We went back to the mirror to see if maybe there was another way out. When we looked at our reflections, there was… something different. I looked at my body. Nothing seemed different. I looked at Roxas and my eyes widened.

There was a white head behind Roxas's shoulder, staring at him. The hairs on my back shot straight up.

"…Hm?" Roxas pondered, clueless.

Finally noticing the apparition, he shrieked and he fell backwards. The mannequin head lay on the floor behind us.

"W-Wh- _ **WHAT**_ is _**THAT**_?!" Roxas yelled, getting up from the ground.

"Y…" he said angrily, preparing to kick it. "Why, you!"

I rushed over to him and hugged him.

"R-Right, Cat," Roxas muttered. "My, that was immature of me…"

He turned to me and gave me a quick smile.

"Well…" he said. "Let's go."

With bravery, valor and courage, we left the room. We headed down the room and noticed that there was a key on the ground. We picked it up and walked forward. Without warning, a lady in red burst from the wall and went after us!

Luckily, we were able to run from it. Yet another lady burst from where she was affixed, this time a lady in blue. I noticed there was something crawling around much faster. The lady in green was a speed demon, angrily propelling herself forward with astonishing speed.

We fit the key into the room with the window next to it and escaped. In the next room, there was a familiar sight. It was "Reserved Seat", the comfortable couch.

"If you're tired, why not rest?" read an easel to the right. "You'll never be hurt again…"

We sat in it for a bit, but decided to move on. There was a window in the back. I was scared and feared something would jump through the window at us. I asked Roxas if he could do something about it, but didn't tell him my reason. He tested the large bookcase near it.

"Ah," he said. "It seems this can be moved. Okay! Step back a bit, Cat."

He heaved the bookcase.

"Heave ho…" he said. "Ho!"

And with that, he moved it to cover the window. He was a little disappointed. There might've been something on the other side that could help us.

"It's covering the window…" he said. "Oh well."

With that out of the way, we looked at a large painting hanging on the wall. It was named "Couple". The depicted people looked strangely familiar…

"What is it, Cat?" Roxas asked, concerned.

"That's my mother and father!" I wailed.

"Huh?!" Roxas asked with a slight sense of bewilderment. "The people in this painting are your father and mother?"

He looked at them, then back at me.

"Aha… They do resemble you a bit, Cat…" he said with a chuckle. "But why would such a painting be down here?"

"Do you know their whereabouts?" I asked.

"Ah? Where are they?" Roxas replied. "Hmm… Well, I can't say that I know either."

He saw the look of disappointment in my face and quickly reassured me.

"D-Don't worry," he said. "They must be somewhere!"

He thought to himself for a few seconds.

 _I thought she was a tough kid, but this is even getting to her…_

After this, we tried to leave the room. But the door was locked.

"Wh… Are you kidding me?" Roxas said. "The door was wide open."

There was a sudden banging on the door.

"T-That sound…" Roxas asked, stupefied. "Is that coming from outside?"

Whoever, or whatever it was, banged some more.

"Something's at the door…" Roxas cautioned. "Be careful, Cat."

We desperately tried to look for a way out. All of a sudden, the wall in the back of the room exploded. A lady in yellow came through and started coming after us. We saw our exit point. Evading her attacks, we crawled through the hole in the wall.

To our horror, nearly all the portraits and statues in the room were mobile. They were all seeking us, searching for us. We saw a nearby door that was open and ran to it. We slammed the door shut and kept running through the hall. Panting and trying to catch our breath, we stopped for a bit.

"Th… That should be… far enough…" Roxas said, fatigued. "I think."

He stood up.

"We certainly showed _**THEM**_!" he said, proudly.

I plopped down on the floor and just sat there.

"My… well then…" Roxas said, still trying to catch his breath. "Let's keep go– …Cat?"

He came to me and knelt down with me.

"Oh my, what is it?" he asked, concerned. "Are you okay?"

I collapsed, utterly exhausted. I faintly heard the sound of his voice as I fell asleep.

"Cat-Catherine?!" he called. "Stay with me, now! Catherine! _**CAT**_!"

I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamt I was running away from the horrible banging sound on the door. I walked backwards, searching for a way out. I found the door and ran through. Rooms upon rooms, endlessly searching.

I finally came upon a door that wouldn't open. I began to hear heavy, pounding footsteps behind me. I was too terrified to speak. My mind was wracked with terror and fear. Please oh please open up please Yqaldir, God Of Mercy I kept thinking.

The doorknob just wouldn't twist. The footsteps drew nearer and I began to get even more desperate. I willed with all my heart to escape. There was a sound and the door opened. I gratefully ran through. My eyes saw something that made tears start streaming down my face.

My heart sunk and my legs collapsed. I was surrounded by a lady in red, a headless statue and a mannequin head. I gave up. They converged on me and I could only close my eyes. When I woke up, I shot straight up and looked at my surroundings.

I was in a small room with a few bookshelves and a large painting. Roxas must have heard me wake up.

"…Ah," he said.

He walked over to me.

"Morning, Cat," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"I had a nightmare," I said.

His expression changed to concern.

"I see…" he replied. "You poor thing… I can't say I'm surprised. Being exposed to such frightful sights, you know? I guess it's good you woke up."

He looked a little ashamed.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice earlier," he said. "Cat, would you take a look in the pocket of that coat?"

I realized that he had given me his coat to use as a blanket. I looked in his pocket and felt something hard. It was a piece of Bloodberry Candy.

"You can have that," Roxas smiled. "Feel free to eat it."

He stood up.

"Let's rest here a while longer before we set out again," he said.

I got up to explore the room I was in. The large painting was "Untitled". I really couldn't figure out what it was. A notice on the wall read "Rules of the Art Gallery".

"No loud conversation," it said. "No photography. No food or drinks. No touching the displays. No fountain pens. No leaving ever".

The last one made me feel trapped. I looked at Roxas.

 _Maybe being trapped with him wouldn't be such a bad thing._

There was a book called "Fun Pictures" that had lots of drawings in it, but I didn't spend too much time on it. There was also a vase filled with water. I placed my rose in it and felt refreshed. I didn't even realize that I left Roxas's coat on the floor.

I went to pick it up. It was black, but I felt safe holding it. I went to give it back to him.

"Oh, my coat…" he said with a nod of thanks. "Thanks, Cat."

"Why do you wear it?" I asked.

He flashed a smile at me.

"I wear it to protect me from the darkness," he answered.

His expression turned serious again.

"Though to be sure, I've been wearing it for almost a year now as well…" he said. "Hm? What is it?"

"Why do you talk like a lady?" I asked.

""Like a lady"…?" he said with a slight frown. "Perhaps so, but… Hm… I can't quite remember."

But he turned his frown upside-down.

"I just took to it, I suppose," he said. "After all, it's preferable to be gentle than rough, Hm?"

I liked that Roxas was a nice person. I decided to keep talking with him.

"Say, Cat…" he said. "You've got pretty good fashion sense, huh? I mean, your clothes. They use some fine-quality cloth, don't they?"

"My mother picks out my clothes," I answered.

"Hm? Your mother picks them out for you?" he replied. "Well, I don't believe that changes the fact of being a girl of good fashion."

He turned to me.

"Oh, Cat, what species are you?" he asked. "I can tell by your glowing eyes that you're not human."

"I'm a fledgling Vampire," I answered.

"…A fledgling Vampire?" he said with astonishment. "Wow, so you're quite young."

Then he smiled and put on a happy face.

"But art galleries are really enthralling for your species," Roxas said. "I'm a bit bored of them myself. Now that I think about it, you were traveling all alone until you met me."

He gave me a pat on the back.

"That's nothing to sneeze at," he said. "I mean it, that's brave."

 _I… I guess I was brave._

"Catherine, can you walk?" Roxas asked, noting my condition. "If you're tired, make sure to tell me right away, okay? Don't be shy about it! I'll completely understand!"

I felt like I could really trust him. He was like a protective boyfriend.

"I was so focused on getting out of here," he said, guiltily. "I didn't really look after you. Sorry, Cat."

"You're doing the best you can," I said. "It's fine."

We smiled at each other. Roxas came up to me.

"Cat, do you remember how you got here from the gallery?" he asked.

"I'm having trouble remembering exactly…" I answered.

He scratched his head.

"I was about to leave," he said. "But then I looked around and didn't see a soul… I panicked when I saw the entrance locked, but found stairs where there had been a wall. Then I was in a red passageway. You know the rest."

I was reminded of my own experience and how I dove into the depths of the fish painting. I also remembered Roxas lying on the floor. Thank goodness I found him.

"I got up early today," Roxas sighed, yawning exasperatedly. "So I'm feeling a bit sleepy now. I was looking forward to going to a gallery and then this. Honestly, I think I've had enough of art galleries at this point."

To lighten up the situation, Roxas made a joke.

"Ah, I'm a little thirsty…" he said. "Think I should drink from the vase?"

I kept my face serious.

"…I'm just kidding," he said, quietly.

At least he tried to humor me. I decided to make my own little joke with Roxas and decided to stare at him. The silence between us confused him.

"…Huh? U-Um, Cat…" he asked. "Did I do something? You're kinda freaking me out…"

I laughed to myself and continued bothering him. I suddenly felt bad.

"I'm sorry for troubling you…" I said.

"Why apologize for that?!" he said with a little sternness. "You didn't do anything wrong, Cat!"

He turned around.

"I mean," he said. "No one could have predicted that things would end up like this."

He turned back to me.

"Come on, be cheery!" he smiled. "It's a disservice to your pretty little face to do anything else."

I giggled and blushed a little. He looked around the room.

"This place must be connected to the art gallery, don't you think?" he said. "I wonder where everyone else in the gallery went."

He seemed a little hopeful.

"For all we know, there might be others lost in this place," he said. "If there are, I hope we can find each other."

I was ready to leave. Strangely, I didn't feel so scared anymore. I guess it was because of Roxas. Because I knew he would be here for me. Sure, he gets easily startled, but I know in my heart, he would never leave me to be claimed by Guertena's art.

"Catherine," he asked. "Are you ready to set out again?"

"I'm ready," I answered.

"Okay!" he smiled. "Let's get going, then!"

And with that, we set off on our next adventure. We left the room and I remembered seeing five portraits of the vampire man when I fainted. It was very eerie. The first one was "Normal". Then he started bleeding from his eyes.

The third and fourth portraits had blood trickling down his face. But the last one was just like the first one: "normal". How odd. We left the area and headed down the stairs. The change in the atmosphere was immediate.

We noted the change in the color of the walls, from gray to violet. As we walked down the hall, we heard a knocking sound on a nearby door. Hesitating at first, we eventually made our way to the door to investigate.

It was locked. There was a peephole so we decided to peer through. Nothing. Pitch black. We couldn't see a thing. In a way, this was a good thing. We breathed a sigh of relief and walked back to continue down the hall.

We noted a lone light bulb in the hallway. We saw what appeared to be a rope maze. There were some headless statues in there but they weren't moving so we decided to check it out. As we ventured in, a pole shot straight out of the ground. We were trapped.

"T-The exit's blocked?!" Roxas exclaimed.

One of the statues roared and started coming after us. Frantically, we ran away from it to the paintings at the top of the room. The first one read "Red Button". We pushed it. The headless statue in red came to life and started chasing us.

Optyx, God Of Torture. We ran to the bookcase and found a book called "Diary".

"It's said that spirits dwell in objects into which people put their feelings," Roxas read. "I've always thought that, if that's true, then the same must be true of artwork. So today, I shall immerse myself in work, so as to impart my own spirit into my creations."

Perhaps this is what Guertena did to make his art come to life. Roxas had a disgusted look on his face.

"Is that really all it says…?" he snapped. "You could have said something about the exit!"

He turned to me.

"Let's get out of here, Cat!" he said.

We ran to the painting above us. "Green Button" it read. Looking around, there weren't any statues in green, so we pressed it. The headless statue in blue right next to us came to life and attacked us. Unbelievable!

Roxas hurried me away. There was only one more painting to try. The space was getting cramped. Three headless statues now were chasing after us. We had to get to the last painting. It was our only hope. Dodging the statues, we desperately made our way to the last painting was "Blue Button".

We closed our eyes and pushed it. There was a clinking sound. Our exit! We ran as fast as we could and escaped the rope maze. Roxas appeared calm and collected, so I emulated his behavior and we continued down the hall. A painting at the end of the hall read "Milk Puzzle". Roxas stared at it.

"Cat, have you heard of milk puzzles?" he asked.

"I haven't," I answered.

"Well," he explained. "As the name implies, it's a puzzle where all the pieces are white like milk. Since there's no picture on them, they're much harder than regular puzzles."

Looking back at it, I realized how difficult it was to put the pieces together.

"Very smart people can finish them in no time at all, but…" Roxas paused. "To be honest, they're not exciting. Since they don't even make a picture in the end. It feels much more worth it to do a puzzle of a picture you like."

I thought of the puzzle we were in, this shadow of a museum. I hated this puzzle, but Roxas was helping me solve it. The next painting was called, "Fleeting Thoughts on a Moonlit Night". It was really pretty. It looked like pink cherry blossoms falling from a tree at night.

We left the area. In the next room, there was a mirror. We carefully walked up to it and stared at our reflections. Thankfully, nothing creepy appeared this time. The door at the end of the hall was locked. Roxas noticed something.

"What's the story with this panel here?" he said. "Can we put something in?"

He thought for a minute.

"I'm not getting any ideas," he said. "Let's look around some more."

There was another room near us. It was unlocked, so we went through. We were met with a headless statue. It didn't move though.

"Sheesh, this statue," Roxas said. "It's blocking the way."

He stepped to the side of it and began to push. He heaved and it moved. Roxas wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Whew," he said. "Okay, that should do it!"

The door ahead of us was the one that we heard the knocking sound from before. We were in the room with the knocking. Yet nothing in here could have done it. The only thing left to do was investigate a cord casually hanging from the ceiling.

We pulled it. Nothing happened, so we left through the exit. Back where we were before, underneath the light bulb was a message in violet writing.

"What is the title of the large floor painting in Guertena's exhibition?" It read.

Roxas scratched his head.

"Gah… Could it be a password?" he said. "The big fish painting, right? Did you see it, Cat?"

I nodded. He went into deep thought.

"But what was it?" he wondered. "I think it was… Something of the deep…? It was just one word…"

He turned to me.

"Cat, can you remember it?" he asked. "Of the deep… what of the deep?"

I thought for a bit and tried to remember the fish painting.

"It was…" I answered. "Abyss!"

""Abyss of the Deep"… Ah!" Roxas exclaimed. "Yes, that was it, Cat! "Abyss of the Deep"! Did you read the title?"

"I did more than that," I replied. "I remembered it."

"Okay," he chuckled. "Let's remember that! "Abyss of the Deep"!"

With that, we hurried back to the locked door.

"Ah!" Roxas said, investigating the panel at the door. "This must be what the password was for! Let's try it! Abyss of the Deep…"

There was a click and the door was unlocked. We looked at each other and went through. Inside were some bookshelves and a single large painting. The bookshelf on the far left had a book with some words I didn't know. I tried reading it.

"? ? by the ?, I ? my finger over her beautiful ?," I read. "With her ? she…"

Roxas took the book from me and inspected it. He quietly shut it.

"Don't read this kinda stuff until you get older," he said.

I guess it was an adult thing. The bookshelf on the right side of the room had a book sticking out.

"The women here like playing "Loves Me, Loves Me Not"," I read.

I thought about the lady plucking the petals off Roxas's rose, one by one. The painting read "Separation". It looked bloody and black. It made me feel scared. I thought about getting separated from Roxas. Then I'd be all alone.

"What an off-putting painting," Roxas remarked.

Suddenly, it was dark. A kind of darkness that swallowed us whole.

"Wh-What?! The lights?!" Roxas yelled. "It's too dark to see! Cat-Catherine! Are you there?!"

I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt as if the darkness were choking me, strangling the very last breath out of me.

"I'm here!" I replied.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's good to hear…" he said. "Stay right there, all right?"

I wasn't moving anywhere. I was way too scared to move at all.

"But, this is a problem," Roxas thought aloud. "Ah, that's right. I forgot I had a lighter."

He clicked it, but I saw no light. I only heard a moan, a soft scream. Then the lights were back on. What I saw made my eyes widen and my heart beat intermittently. There was writing all over the wall, graphitized in different colors.

Looking around slowly, I saw that they read " _ **HELP NO DON'T KILL ME STOP DON'T**_ ". Who was in here with us that wrote this. The title of the painting had also changed to " _ **S T O P**_ ".

"Huh?" Roxas said, pocketing his lighter.

He found me and looked around with me.

"Wh…" he gasped. "What is _**THIS**_?!"

He walked forward a few steps.

"I don't think this is…" he said. "Good for my mental health…"

This was our cue to leave the room. When we left, there was a notice painted in neat red letters.

"A notice to all visitors," Roxas read. "There is a strict ban on fire-starting implements in the gallery. We request that you report the use of any matches, lighters, or the like. Should the use of such implements be reported to the staff."

It appeared that the rest of the notice when down to the other rooms, but it abruptly ended like that. As we walked back to the milk puzzle area, we noticed footprints. Red footprints. They led to a hidden passageway that we didn't see before.

Anxiously, we followed the footprints in. We walked through. A girl with a slim build along with small breasts was there. She had red eyes that matched her faded red hair which extended to her midback and had a black rose/ribbon with a white veil on top of her hair.

"Ahh?!" she exclaimed, falling backwards.

She wore a red Lolita type dress with her shirt being red plaid with white squares and a red and black patterned ribbon attached to the front of it. She wore a red collar with a black tie. She wore a red skirt with a red-and-white plaid horizontal ruffle in the middle, the two other ruffles being red.

She had a black bow on her back and wore white high heels that also had black bows attached to them. There was also a red ribbon tied around her left ankle.

"Whoa," Roxas asked in a worried tone. "Are you okay?!"

He walked over to her. She got up and moved back a little.

"Ah!" Roxas called out to her. "Wait!"

He tried a different approach.

"Hey, are you…" Roxas asked. "Could you be one of the visitors to the gallery?"

"Ah…!" was all she said.

"As I thought…" Roxas smiled.

He introduced himself to her.

"I am Roxas," he said. "And this girl is Catherine, "Cat" for short."

I slowly walked and stood next to him. Still shocked, the girl was silent. She could only stare at us. Roxas continued to explain our story.

"We were in the art gallery," he said. "But then somehow found ourselves lost in this place. So now we're both trying to find a way out. Presumably, you're doing the same?"

The girl's eyes looked sad and she finally spoke.

"I…" she said. "I was looking to see if there was anyone else too… I wanted to get out… So I…"

Before she could finish, Roxas interrupted and joyously invited her.

"Ah, I knew it!" he said. "Well, would you like to come with us?"

"Huh…?" was her reply, a quizzical expression on her face.

"It's dangerous to be alone here," Roxas explained. "There are lots of strange creatures around. So will you come with us? I think it would be best if we all stay together."

The girl's face lit up.

"Yeah!" she said. "I'll come…"

"Then it's decided!" Roxas smiled. "Oh, what's your name?"

The girl stared at us for a bit.

"Audrey Belrose," she answered. "If you wanna hang with me you better be willing to get wild. I want you both to show me a good time, and be people I can get crazy with. Basically, if you're both boring, if you're dicks, then I don't want none of that. I'm here to get _**OUT**_."

"Audrey, then!" Roxas replied. "Nice to meet you!"

"…Yeah!" she smiled.

Then she walked over to me. She was a bit shy.

"Um…" she said. "Nice to meet you, Cat…"

I remembered how Roxas was so mature and courteous to this stranger, so I remembered my manners.

"Nice to meet you too," I smiled.

"…Yeah!" she beamed.

Roxas turned to the both of us.

"All right!" he said. "Now that we have more company, we can proceed with our spirits high!"

"Yeah!" Audrey smiled, cheerfully.

With a little more vigor in our step, we were ready to face whatever challenges awaited us. Roxas certainly felt a little more comfortable with someone else to walk beside with. Audrey looked happy to have found company.

I guess it's nice to have another girl to be around. Not that Roxas wasn't nice. A painting near us read "The Force of Quarrel". It appeared to be an argument. Moving along, there was a split in the path. Trying to move up, Roxas stopped.

"Cat, there's a vase the other way," Roxas said. "Let's use it just in case."

Thank goodness Roxas was looking out for me. We went to the vase and placed our roses in.

"Say…" Roxas started. "Seeing as Cat and I both have roses… Audrey, do you have a rose as well?"

She reached into her pocket and produced a pretty sight.

"Yeah, I do!" she answered. "A black rose!"

"Ah," Roxas smiled. "It's true! You two keep those safe. Don't you dare lose it. And don't give it to anyone. And…"

He stopped and checked to see if we were paying attention. Audrey was preoccupied with something else.

"Wooow, Cat's rose is piiink!" she beamed. "My rose is blaaaaaaaaaaaack!"

She put away her rose.

"I like black, but I also like red!" she said. "Oh and blue!"

Roxas shook his head.

"Learn to listen, would you?" he sighed.

He signaled that it was time to head on up through the hallway, so we moved. Audrey sure was a loud, hyper and an all-around happy girl. What's her secret to happiness in such a dreary place? Maybe she can teach me later. In the next room, there was a notice on the wall.

"Which one could it be?" it read.

Another cryptic message. Only time will tell what it means. We pushed on. The next painting we saw was titled "Flowers of Jealousy". Devoid of anything related to flowers or even plants, it looked like a maze with a single red dot at the top of it.

There were two doors, one to the right and another to the left. The one on the right was locked, so we headed over to the one on the left. Thankfully, it was open. Inside was a fairly odd surprise. Spear-Tailed Bunnies.

Spear-Tailed Bunnies everywhere. Pink and white Spear-Tailed Bunnies galore. A lone green Spear-Tailed Bunny caught my eye. Perhaps this was what the notice was referencing before: the odd one out. Before investigating the discolored Spear-Tailed Bunny, we checked out our surroundings.

There were tables, stools and some bookshelves. The bookshelf on the left had a book titled "Ruin of the Heart".

"If your spirit suffers too much," it read. "You will soon start to hallucinate. And in the end, you will be destroyed. And more worrying yet is that you will not even be conscious of that fact."

I hoped to god that these Spear-Tailed Bunnies were not a hallucination of mine. I certainly didn't want to hope what kind of horror the illusion would mask. At the back of the room was a giant picture of a pink Spear-Tailed Bunny titled "Red Eyes". Roxas finally had enough.

"The love of…" he muttered. "This painting, this room… why must it be so unsettling?!"

Audrey had a look of surprise on her face.

"Huh? Really?" she said, shocked. "I think it's cute…"

Roxas was flabbergasted.

"Wha?!" he replied. "What about this is _**CUTE**_?!"

"I just think it is…" Audrey shrugged.

She turned to me.

"What about Cat?" she asked.

I thought of Spear-Tailed Bunnies as a snack rather than cute and kind of agreed with Roxas. However, I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

"Yeah," I lied. "They are."

Audrey's face lighted up.

"I know, right?!" she beamed. "It's so adorable!"

Roxas gave up and sighed.

"Enough of this," he said. "Let's just check the room and leave."

He took another look around the room.

"I feel like I'm being watched in this room…" he sighed. "Talk about unsettling."

We took a few steps, when suddenly, the green Spear-Tailed Bunny fell and shattered into pieces. Carefully, we edged up to it and noticed something shiny amidst the shards. It was a key. We picked it up and hurried out of the room.

As we were going through the hall, we heard a noise coming from "Flowers of Jealousy". Something seemed to be emerging from the painting.

"Huh?" Audrey said, quietly. "That sound's getting closer…"

Shaking violently now, the frame rumbled. A thorny rose burst from the painting. Shooting up from the ground in front of me were three thorny vines. Roxas gasped.

"Something came up from the ground!" Audrey screamed.

The ground trembled.

"T-This is bad!" Roxas shouted. "Get away from the painting!"

The ground beneath me began to crack.

"Cat!" Audrey screamed. "Watch out!"

Audrey pulled me away as another thorny vine shot out of the ground. Roxas gasped. With the worst of it over, we got as close to the vines as we could and tried to see the other person on the other side.

"Are you two all right?!" Roxas asked, worriedly.

Audrey hugged me.

"Ahhh!" she said. "That scared me!"

I was visibly shocked and thought about what happened. If it weren't for Audrey, I would have surely got seriously hurt.

"Cat?" Roxas asked. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I wasn't," I answered. "But I was scared."

Roxas was on the other side and he wasn't with me. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"It certainly was startling," he said. "But as long as you're not hurt."

He reached out to the vines.

"But with these…" he said. "Things in the way, I can't get over there… Maybe I can cut it down?"

Roxas then touched and felt the vines.

"Wait," he said. "What's this?"

It was smooth, solid and so cold.

"These vines are made of stone…" he said. "What to do…"

While he thought, Audrey turned to me.

"Hey, Cat," she said. "You got a key in that room, right?"

I felt my pocket to see if it was still there. Sure enough, cool to the touch, was the key.

"Maybe that key…" she said, pointing to the door ahead of us. "Opens that door there?"

Perhaps so. I looked at the door and stared at it.

"We might find something to get rid of these in another room," she said. "Should we go look?"

Roxas seemed a little worried.

"Hmm… well…" he mumbled. "I wonder if you'll be okay…"

Audrey turned to face me with her bright eyes.

"We'll be fine!" she said. "Right, Cat?"

It was frightening to not have Roxas with me. But nothing good would come out of here stuck between stone vines. I swallowed my fear and cleared my mind. At least I'd have Audrey with me. I should try to be calm and optimistic like her.

"We'll be fine," I agreed.

"See!" Audrey said, happily. "Cat thinks we'll be fine."

Our friend on the other side sounded a little sad.

"M-My…" he mumbled to himself. "Is that so…"

Then he stood straight up.

"Well," he said. "I guess it's worth a try…"

Then Roxas got serious.

"But if you don't find anything, make sure you come straight back, okay?" he said. "Then we'll rethink about what we can do."

"Yeah!" Audrey nodded. "Got it!"

She turned to me.

"Okay," she said. "Let's go!"

I waved goodbye to Roxas, though he probably didn't see me. This was the second time I would be separated from authority. I really hoped Audrey and I will find something to reunite with Roxas. We looked at each other, then stuck the key in the door.

It fit and opened easily. We looked at each other again, took a deep breath and ventured in. The room was a pretty cramped space. It looked like a closet. Several headless statues were in here, but they didn't move. When we investigated a statue, Audrey commented on its strength.

"Looks like this would break if you hit it…" she noted.

She tried moving it but gave up.

"Way too heavy to move, though," she said.

Along with the statues were tons of cardboard boxes. One of them was filled with yellowed paper, another with various kinds of paint, yet another filled with worn paintbrushes. Audrey saw a stool and sat down for a little bit. I guess she was a bit tired.

"I'd like to take this stool, but…" she started.

She tugged at it, but it wouldn't budge.

"It looks like it's stuck to the ground," she shrugged.

We moved on. There was an easel with a sketch of some strange drawing, but we couldn't make out what it was. Around the back of the room, Audrey was going through a box.

"Hmm…" she muttered. "Is there anything useful in here? …Ah!"

It was a palette knife. She turned to me.

"Maybe this can cut those vines?!" she suggested.

Those vines were hard as stone.

"I doubt that would work," I replied.

"You're right…" she said. "Nah, it wouldn't work…"

Still clutching the palette knife, she stared at it.

"But I think I'll hold on to this…" she said.

Audrey turned to me.

"You know," she continued. "Just in case…"

I was a little weirded out, but if it made her feel safer, I'd be fine with it. After we searched for a while, Audrey sighed.

"Hmm…" she said. "I don't really see anything useful. Should we just go back to Roxas for now?"

As I was about to answer, the light started to flicker.

"Wahhh!" Audrey yelled. "Huh?!"

The lights flickered on and off again and then stopped.

"That scared me…" Audrey whined.

The lights flickering didn't really scare me. What really bothered me was the statue where we came in was now moved and blocked the entrance. I pointed it out to Audrey.

"Huh?" she asked. "The exit… Wh-When did that move? Wasn't it just against the wall? Move it, Cat!"

We walked up to it and got ready to move it.

"Ready?" she asked. "Heeeave!"

Even with our combined strength, it was too heavy to move. Panting, Audrey turned to me.

"No good…" she panted. "It won't even budge…"

I hate when these kinds of things happen to me.

"What do we do, Cat…?" Audrey asked. "We can't get out…"

The best thing to do was to look for clues. When I checked out the box with yellowing paper, it was wet for some reason. The box with the various art tools smelled moldy. The box with the brushes looked different.

The brushes were made with real hair. When I checked the last box filled with paint, the red paint was gone. Having done as much as we could in this room, we were ready to move on.

"Not much else we can do but go this way, Cat!" Audrey said, pointing at the door.

We headed on through. The lights were already flashing on and off in this hallway. A steady rhythm of light and darkness. As we walked up, we heard something falling. It sounded like it was slowly rolling down some steps.

Then a splatter. We moved up and saw two windows. Someone walked by. We tried to look through and see who it was, but they were gone. As we walked away, they came back and banged on the window. This was enough to get us moving out of there.

At the end of the second set of stairs, there was something red splattered on the ground. We walked up another set of stairs. Waiting for us at the end was a single painting. It was "Clown". It appeared to be the face of a clown, accessorized with white makeup and a single tear.

Walking down the final path, we heard a splashing sound on the wall. Looking back, there were four messages written in brown paint.

"I want you to have fun, Catherine," they read. "Come to a fun world without any adults. We'll be together. You, me and our friends."

 _Who keeps writing these messages?_

Audrey held my hand. It was… a little cold. In silence, we looked at each other and went through the next door. In the next room, there was a large gap in the floor. We couldn't cross it. On the other side were a box and a weird pentagon shape.

Looking at the wall, there were five cords. A blinking green painting was under the fourth cord. There was a sea blue rose drawing on the floor near where we came in. We went over and sat down to think for a little while.

"I wonder what Roxas is doing?" Audrey whispered. "We kinda left him behind…"

I sighed. I wondered too.

~Roxas's Point of View~

I was getting tired of waiting by the stone vines. I tapped my foot impatiently. It was so quiet.

"They're taking their time…" I muttered. "I wonder if something happened?"

I walked a few steps and began to shout.

"Cat! Audrey!" I called. "Can you hear me?!"

There was no response.

"No good…" I said, bringing my palm to my face. "Argh, I knew I shouldn't have let them go alone! What to do?"

I looked around. The only place left to go was that god awful room.

"I suppose I'll investigate that room again," I said. "As much as I hate to go back in there…"

I readied myself to re-enter the disturbing room full of Spear-Tailed Bunnies. I braced myself for the eerie sensation of being watched. That was all in vain. The room still haunted me. I looked on at the disturbing dolls with tangled masses of black hair, piercing red eyes, disgusting blue skin and demented smiles.

The dolls hanging by their necks from the ceiling. I shuddered looking at them. Averting my eyes from the many small dolls, I looked at "Red Eyes". This was the most disturbing painting yet. The magnified face of a doll. I felt it watching my every move.

 _How could the girls see anything in this room as "cute"?_

"No matter how I look at it, this is _**NOT**_ "cute"," I told myself, looking away from "Red Eyes".

Nothing was different since I was last here. Browsing the bookshelf on the right side of the room, I sighed.

"Nothing of note here," I said.

Then I noticed something. There was a crack in the wall. I tried to move the bookcase and it slid as I pushed it.

"Ah, it moved!" I gasped. "Why didn't I notice that earlier?"

Behind the bookshelf was a small hole in the wall.

"Oh, well," I shrugged. "I can go out this way."

I guess there was some merit in visiting this horrid room after all. As I left the terrible room, I crawled into a much larger area. A violet message on the wall read "There is no exit. There is no reason". What a defeatist notion.

The door adjacent to it was locked. I explored a little bit more. There was a black triangle shape sticking out of the ground. I couldn't do anything with it. Around the back of the room were five cords. How mysterious.

I decided to start from the left side and make my way over. I pulled the first cord. A black arm shot out from the wall and hit me. Hesitatingly, I pulled the second cord. A green mist flowed out from above me and assailed my lungs.

"What is this?!" I said, hacking and coughing.

How many more of these cords were going to be detrimental to my health? My rose was starting to look wilted. I stepped over to the third cord and gave it a tug. The lights went out. It was pitch black.

"You must be _**KIDDING**_ me!" I yelled out to no one. "It switches off the power?!"

Hurriedly, I pulled the rope again. The light came back on. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Whew…" I breathed. "Thank goodness… I thought it wouldn't come back."

Reluctantly, I moved over to the next cord and pulled it. There was a click and I heard something over on the other side of the wall fall. I could faintly hear the sound of cheering.

 _Maybe pulling that cord helped out Cat and Audrey?_

Not wanting to overstep my boundaries, I refrained from pulling the last cord. I could just sense something bad would happen. There was a drawing of a pink rose on the floor. I went over to sit and plan out my next move.

~Catherine's Point of View~

We cheered as the blinking painting fell from the wall and got wedged between the two sides.

"Cat, look!" Audrey said, pointing at the painting. "Now we can cross!"

She smiled. The painting wasn't blinking anymore. Its eyes were shut, as if it were sleeping. I wanted to be courteous.

"Is it okay to cross?" I asked.

The painting opened its eyes, looked at me and closed them again.

"Guess so!" Audrey said, happily.

We walked over it and there was a bouncing sound, like a trampoline. We checked out the box but didn't open it. Something was moving around in there.

"Cat," Audrey said, worriedly. "Let's not open that box."

That weird pentagon thing had a blue triangle painted out on the top. We decided it'd be fun to kick it around and we kicked it into the large hole in the floor. With nothing else to do in the room, we moved on.

The next area was winding like a snake. There was only a skinny path and the wall had lots of light bulbs. As we continued down the path, Audrey stopped.

"Hey, Cat…" she said. "Can I ask you something?"

I turned to her.

"Is Roxas…" she asked. "Your brother?"

No, he wasn't my brother. My brother is back home with my sister since they didn't want to go to the art gallery with us. Roxas was a random cute person I met in this twisted world. But I left that last part out because I felt like he was more than just a stranger.

I honestly wouldn't mind if he was my boyfriend, though.

"No," I answered.

"Hmm…" Audrey said, deep in thought. "So your dad is somebody else… I see… Is your mom nice, Cat?"

I thought this was kind of odd.

"She is," I answered.

"Ah…" she said, quietly. "That's good… You wanna see your parents again soon, right?"

Well, I certainly did miss them right now. This was the first time I was ever really left alone, not having them by my side.

"I wanna get out soon, too…" Audrey said.

I couldn't agree more. As I turned to continue walking, Audrey stopped me again. I guess she had some more on her mind.

"Hey… Cat, uh…" she stuttered. "If only two of us could get out of here… then what?"

I thought this was a very sad question. She was asking me to pick her or Roxas. I loved them both. Roxas was my knight, always watching out for me and acting so caring. Audrey was the sister I never had, so immature yet fun and cheerful.

But Roxas wasn't here right now. We were separated. My head hurt from thinking about this. For the time being, I just told Audrey what she wanted to hear.

"I'd go with you," I lied.

"Really? Oh, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, her eyes looking so full and alive. "I wanna leave with you too, Cat! And once we get out, we'll play all sorts of stuff! And eat lots of candy and go all these places…"

She trailed off and hugged me.

"Teeheehee, I can't wait!" she said. "…Let's make sure we leave together, okay? Promise!"

"I promise," I said.

Audrey was my bundle of joy and bubble of life. Together, we left the winding room. When we entered the next room, there was a funny smell in the air. There was a red mist floating in a hall. We decided to avoid it.

We went inside the room next to it. There were three mannequin heads and a painting titled "Lady Without Her Umbrella". There was just a black silhouette looking out into the distance. On one of the tables, there was a key shaped like a tree.

We took it. Before leaving, we thought that maybe there was something that the mannequin heads were hiding. Of the three heads, we went with the middle head since we were very impartial little girls.

"What's it looking at?" Audrey asked.

I ignored it since mannequin heads weren't supposed to be looking at anything.

"Let's take it off the table," I said.

"Huh?" she questioned. "Take it off? What if it breaks? And it's so heavy…"

"Let's move it," I said, confident.

"O-Okay…" Audrey replied, sensing the confidence in my voice. "If you're that sure, then I won't stop you."

We pushed and the mannequin head fell off the shelf. Surprisingly, it did not break. But a red mist began to seep out from where the head made contact with the floor. The head also appeared to be weeping red tears streamlining down its face.

"Ahhh! Look, Cat!" Audrey whined. "There's cracks in the floor! And there's some weird gas coming out…"

This room was getting a little dangerous. We decided to leave before it got to be too much. When we left the room, we saw that there was a painting titled "Fisherman". It appeared to be a cliff by the ocean.

"There's nobody there, though," Audrey noted.

The door next to the painting was locked. To the left of us were another drawing of a sea blue rose on the ground, a table with a vase and a painting of lips titled "Tattletale". It wasn't the time to sit and think yet since we had more to explore.

There was a painting on the far left side of the room titled "Heavenly Thread". It just looked like a string hanging in a black and white contrast. I think I remembered seeing this painting in the actual museum. We entered the room next to it. Immediately, Audrey noticed.

"What's this place?" she snapped. "There's no color!"

True were her words. The entire room was in gray. There was an easel with a rainbow painted on it, but there was no color. A palette and brush were suspended in midair.

"It's like there's someone there…" Audrey commented.

There was a large gap in the floor, preventing us from exploring the other side. I couldn't see clearly, but there appeared to be a key lying on a white table. We couldn't really do anything else in here, so we left. We headed down from the room and saw another familiar painting.

It was "Selfless Guard". The door next to it was locked, but Audrey stopped me before we left.

"What's this…" she pondered. "Can we put in a name?"

There was a painting there. It looked like stars shining in the night sky. I thought I saw this painting somewhere in the real museum. I wasn't too sure. I thought for a while.

"Marvelous Night," I offered.

There was a sound and the lock clicked. We went inside. It was a small room with a few bookshelves. There was a book titled "A Girl's Last Days". Intrigued, I decided to read it.

"Once upon a time, there was a mentally-young fledgling Vampire," I read. "She went with her divorced parents to an art gallery. But all of a sudden, she realized that she was lost. She searched through the dim gallery, but found neither her divorced parents nor the exit."

"Scared, helpless, lonely, hungry and thirsty," I read. "She fell and hurt herself, putting her body past the limit."

This was all too similar to my own life. I was scared to look at the last page. I flipped the page. It was an illustration of a collapsed fledgling Vampire. I hurriedly shut the book and walked away. Hoping to find a more useful book, I checked the other side of the room.

I found "Collected Works of Guertena". The drawings were in alphabetical order. The letters "L", "G" and "J" were highlighted.

"Should we take a look?" Audrey inquired.

We decided to look at "L" first.

"The Lady in Red (6210)", read the title. "It was said that he based this on a lover he had at the time, but he has denied this claim. In truth, Guertena based it around the ? women who attempted to court him for his inheritance".

I couldn't understand one of the words, but I understood enough to know that people were after Guertena for his money. We flipped to "G" next.

"The ? Fish (6235) ", it read. "Despite being grayscale, this curious piece makes clever use of shading and angles to give the impression of color. The ? depiction of even the ? evokes a wide variety of emotions in people".

I didn't know a few of the words, but I guess the word in the title must start with "G". We flipped to "J".

"Juggling (6223) ", it read. "A work based on a juggler he saw at the circus with his grandchild. As it is extremely rare for Guertena to use real people as models, this piece is highly valuable".

There was a little hole in the wall next to the bookcase. Small enough for a key. We stuck our key inside. But nothing happened. Audrey was a little upset. With nothing else to do here, we left the room. Since we explored as much as we could, we returned to the sea blue rose drawing and sat down to think for a bit.

~Roxas's Point of View~

As I was sitting on the pink rose drawing on the floor, a strange pentagon shape fell from the ceiling. It had a blue triangle on top of it. Coincidentally, it matched the triangle on the floor near me. I decided why not and pushed the pentagon on top of it.

It sunk right in and the door to my left opened with a clink. Yes, now I can finally move on. I went through the door. I walked forward a few steps and noticed one of those creepy dolls lying in front of me. There was some text above it.

"Hello there, Roxas…" It read. "I don't like being alone… Take me with you…!"

 _No way… I'm leaving you behind. Goodbye._

I turned and continued down the hall. There, I saw another doll, another message.

"Hey," it read. "Why aren't you taking me?"

 _No… This couldn't be…_

I walked back to see if the doll was still there. It wasn't. Disgusted, I turned to walk away again. I walked down the hall some more and made a turn. Waiting for me there was the doll and more writing.

"Why are you ignoring me?" said the writing. "Do you hate me?"

 _This was unbelievable. How was the doll following me?_

I hated the fact that it kept following me. Shaking my head, I proceeded down the hallway. The persistent doll was waiting.

"Hey, play with me!" the writing said. "I know lots of fun things to do…"

I couldn't imagine what kind of sick things this doll or whoever kept writing the messages considered "fun". I walked away. And saw the doll again. It continued where it left off.

"I've got lots of friends, too…" the writing said. "I'll introduce you!"

 _Sick. This was just sick._

I turned away and continued my trek. The next doll and next message was not as spooky.

"Be here forever…" It read.

I disregarded it and followed the path all the way to the end, where I was greeted by the doll one final time. By this time, I was losing it.

"How long are you gonna keep following me?" I sighed.

 _Could it even follow me into the next room?_

I wanted this to be over.

"Enough of this!" I shouted. "I'm busy here and I'm not gonna be your buddy!"

I was about to kick it when I remembered Catherine's face. Her soft, gentle, beautiful face implored me to stop and reconsider. I thought about how she stopped me from kicking that mannequin head in the room with the mirror.

No, Catherine wouldn't want this. If I was to find my way back to her, I'd have to be rational and cool-headed. I proceeded to gently move the doll out of the way.

"It would be best not to get involved here…" I muttered.

With the doll out of the way, I reached for the doorknob. It was stuck. The door was locked. The instant I removed my hand from the knob, there was a cracking, splashing sound to my left. There was now writing embedded in the wall.

It read "E". Then the door clicked and it was unlocked. I left, leaving the doll behind. Hopefully, I'd never see it again. In the next room, I approached the first door I saw. It was locked and the doorknob was unusually cold.

I ignored it and noticed to the right a drawing of a pink rose similar to the one I saw before. Noting this, I headed up the room. There, I saw it. The doll. Just sitting there in its stupid pink clothing, smiling at me.

"I'll always be with you…" the text above it read. "My home is just nearby…"

What a terrible place to be near. I went inside the room next to it, hoping to god it was not its "home". It didn't appear to be its home. All I saw were seven pedestals and a lone pallet in the back of the room.

"Collect the seven balls of paint…" read the notice below. "Then the room will be colored and your bridge will be made".

I had no idea what it was referring to, but I guess my goal now was to collect balls of paint.

"Balls of paint…?" I said to myself. "I wonder where those are…"

I left the room. On the right side of the door were two paintings. The first was "Depths". It appeared to be red lines intersecting with each other in a white background. Abstract art I assumed. The latter was titled "Marvelous Night".

It was a painting of stars shining in the night sky. I felt like I saw it somewhere before. I continued my exploration of the room. The door next to it was locked. I noticed an odd green tree sprouting from the top of the door.

Odd. To the right of it, a turquoise vase. It was "Eternal Blessings". I smiled and thought of the time Catherine placed my rose in the vase and saved my life. Now, I could save my own life. I decided to check inside the room.

"No checking out books", a notice on the wall read.

 _Sorry, but that's not likely. Especially since there's tons of books here._

The shelves on the right were obstructing the path, so I tried to move them.

"Hrm…" I said. "I should be able to move it, but I can't."

They didn't look that heavy. How odd. The middle bookcase contained a book titled "Theories of the World".

"More valuable than sharing existence is making fantasies into reality," I read. "I'm not sure what that means…"

Since there was nothing else to be done on this side of the room, I checked the left side. A book titled "Conquer the Unknown and Know No Fear". I closed it, thinking it would try to convince me to do crazy stuff to confront fear.

I headed up the room. Another book on the case was titled "Terror".

"Being alone is fearful," I read. "A group of two can have relief. A group of three…"

The rest of the page was ripped. I put the book down.

"I hope Cat and Audrey are okay," I sighed. "Well, as long as there are two of them, I guess…"

The painting in the middle of the wall was one of the paintings I saw in the museum. It was "Enlightenment", an eye looking to the right side. I moved on to the next bookcase. There was a book titled "The Essentials of Color", going into depth about techniques artists employed.

Suddenly, I heard a noise to my left. I gasped. It was a green orb.

"What's this now? It's soft, but I feel I could break it…" I muttered. "Perhaps this is a ball of paint?"

As if I said a magic word, it disappeared.

"Hm…" I noted. "It vanished."

I went on to the next door. It was locked. To the right of it was a painting. It was called, "Fishing Hook", yet I saw nothing but the ocean. A quizzical expression was plastered on my face. I left to see another room on the bottom side of the room. When I entered the room, a red mist fogged up my vision.

"Oof…" I grunted. "What's with this room?! Don't wanna stay here too long."

I promptly left. When I exited, I saw two paintings. One was "Worry", a painting I had seen in the real museum. The other was "Juggling", a moving picture of a jester juggling four balls. A voice came from the painting.

"What year was I born?" it asked.

I was stumped. I didn't know when the juggler was born. I thought back to when I last saw the painting. It was back in the museum. Before the weird things started to occur. I tried to remember what I learned from it.

I remember reading something about Guertena visiting the circus with his grandchild. Gah what else?! Wait. I recalled it started with a "6". Yes, the number was… "6223". I was sure of it. I entered it.

"C-o-r-r-e-c-t!" spelled out the juggler.

I felt like I won a shoddy prize at some rigged carnival attraction. Then I heard a soft noise on the ground. It was a blue ball of paint. I picked it up and it promptly vanished. I left the area and walked around for a little.

About the exact area where I walked in, there was a yellow ball of paint. I picked it up, and again, it vanished. I headed back to the room with the pedestals. Sure enough, the balls I collected were there. I suddenly remembered.

The red mist room. I thought I saw a ball in there. Before I ventured inside, I made sure my rose was in tip-top condition. After I refreshed it, I went inside. The gas was toxic. With every step I took, petals fell off my rose.

I carefully planned my route to the ball. It was violet. When I picked it up, it disappeared. With my mission accomplished, I proceeded to leave the room. Before I left, I noticed two things. There was a table at the other end of the room with a vase on it.

And I also thought I saw something to my right. It was an umbrella. Running out of time, I finally left the room. I was gasping for breath. That room was incredibly dangerous. Right away, I went over to "Eternal Blessings" and replenished the rose.

Taking a deep breath, I returned to the hazardous room. I shuffled over to where the umbrella was, hacking and coughing with every step. I finally reached it, grabbed it and got out of there. I rushed back to "Eternal Blessings".

As I healed the rose, I noticed something… different. It was the doll. It moved. It was now right next to me.

"Hey, what're you doing?" the inscription in the wall read. "I wanna play too…"

 _What a pest._

I returned to the room to investigate the vase. I entered and made my way through. Hoping to see water in the vase at the end, my hopes were crushed when it was disappointingly empty. I ran back out, clutching my chest with every step.

This wasn't good for my health. I returned to "Eternal Blessings" and healed up. Then I walked around a bit more. I revisited the "Fishing Hook" painting. This time, the hook was in 3D.

"…What's up with this?" I noted. "It's coming out of the painting… Could it be, well… a hook?"

I suddenly had the most brilliant idea. I decided to hook the umbrella to the hook.

"I wonder…" I whispered, placing the umbrella on the hook. "If I put this umbrella on it…"

The line connected to the hook tugged up and the umbrella was pulled up.

"Huh…" I observed. "It went into the painting… There sure are a lot of inexplicable things going on…"

With not much else left to do, I went back to the pink rose drawing on the floor and thought out what I should do next.

~Catherine's Point of View~

We thought we heard something around the "Fisherman" painting so we went to investigate. The fisherman, he was back!

"Hey, look, Cat…" Audrey exclaimed. "He caught something!"

The fisherman took his red catch and gave it to us. It was… an umbrella. What a weird thing to catch in the ocean. We moved on from the painting to the room below it. We remembered the painting of the "Lady Without Her Umbrella". Audrey tugged at me.

"Cat!" she said. "Umbrella!"

I gave the woman the umbrella. She took it without hesitation and opened it up. It began to rain in her painting. Suddenly, I felt water. Droplets of water, falling softly on my head.

"Huh? Huh?!" Audrey said, looking all over the room. "It started raining in the room!"

We saw some water accumulating at the bottom of the room, pouring into the cracks in the floor where the mannequin head fell. With not much left to do, we left the room. We went back to our sea blue rose drawing on the floor, drying out our clothes and thinking out our next plan.

~Roxas's Point of View~

I heard a dripping sound from the room next to me, the room with the dangerous red gas. I went inside to investigate. There was water, dripping from the ceiling. Right into the vase. This was a godsend. I walked forward, ignoring the pain and focusing only on the vase.

When I got there, it was overflowing with water. My rose was replenished instantly. I chuckled to myself. Looks like I can explore a little bit more of this room. I saw that there was a single cord hanging down from the ceiling to the right.

I made a dash for it. What a big mistake. With every step, my body took a heavy physical toll. My skin was burning and my lungs were bursting. By the time I reached the rope, I was almost dead. On my last legs, I used what strength I had left to pull the cord.

Suddenly, the red gas began to dissipate. In a few moments, there was not a single trace of it left in the room.

"Ah…" I gasped, rushing back to the vase to heal my aching self. "That strange gas is gone."

Unfortunately, there was nothing else to be seen in the room. I made my body undergo such strenuous stress… for nothing. I walked out of the room and back up when suddenly, around the room with tree on top of it, there was a large tremor.

I was startled by the shaking. I looked up at the tree. There were now what appeared to be apples on it. I decided to head inside to check out what happened. The bookcases that I couldn't move before were gone.

Just gone. They mysteriously disappeared. I was thankful for this. In the back of the room, there was a pink ball of paint. I picked it up and of course, it vanished. I then decided to check out the painting and books in the room.

The lone painting was "Strained Ear". It was… an ear. A plain, simple ear. I guess Guertena was fascinated by hearing? Anyways, I checked the books. There, I saw "Collected Works of Guertena". They were all in alphabetical order, but the letters "S", "H" and "A" were highlighted.

I started first with "S".

"Serpent's Spirit (6248)," read the title. "Beginning with this piece, Guertena began his focus on abstract art. But at the time, cubism was more popular, leaving Guertena's various abstract works largely ignored".

I couldn't help but feel sorry for Guertena. To be the pioneer in something great, but be ignored because your style wasn't "in". I moved on to "H".

"The Hanged Man (6219)", read the title. "Guertena painted this as a page filler while working for a magazine. Once this illustration became renowned, it was sold for a limited time as an actual tarot card using the picture. Presently, it is near impossible for one to find the tarot card".

 _How… odd._

Using a hanged man in a magazine as well as fortune-telling cards. I shrugged. Guess I had to live during the time period to understand. I moved on to "A".

"Audrey Belrose (?)," read the title. "The last work of Guertena's life. While the girl appears almost lifelike, naturally, she is not based on a real person".

I turned the page. I gasped and took a close look at the picture. A girl with a slim build along with small breasts was in the picture. She had red eyes that matched her faded red hair which extended to her midback and had a black rose/ribbon with a white veil on top of her hair.

She wore a red Lolita type dress with her shirt being red plaid with white squares and a red and black patterned ribbon attached to the front of it. She wore a red collar with a black tie. She wore a red skirt with a red-and-white plaid horizontal ruffle in the middle, the two other ruffles being red.

She had a black bow on her back and wore white high heels that also had black bows attached to them. There was also a red ribbon tied around her left ankle…

"W-Why? It can't be… that's…" I stuttered. "Audrey?!"

I slammed the book shut and put it back in the case.

"She doesn't exist…? What does that mean…?!" I started shouting. "And she's with Cat right now! No way…"

I looked up and saw that the "Strained Ear" painting was moving. Was it… hearing what I was saying? Suddenly, I heard a knocking sound. I rushed out the room to see what it was. There was nothing outside the room.

I ran around, searching for the culprit. Returning to the entrance of the room, I saw it. The doll. It was by the locked door. There was a new message waiting to be read.

"I picked up something good…" it said. "I'm making it my treasure!"

 _What is the meaning of this?_

I bent down and took a closer look at the doll. It wasn't holding anything in its hands… Wait a minute.

"Oh?" I said. "Its stomach looks bigger somehow…"

I felt around.

"What should I do?" I wondered.

I swallowed my fear and decided to check it out more.

"I suppose I'll look closer," I muttered.

I made a small incision in its stomach with my nail. Surprisingly, it opened up quite easily. Something fell on the ground. It was a red ball of paint. I picked it up, then it vanished. Suddenly, the doll squeaked and squealed.

My eyes turned to meet its wicked smile. It got up on its tiny legs and ran through the door.

 _Oh no. What's behind that door…_

I approached it.

"The door's…" I whispered. "Unlocked?"

I counted. I only needed one more ball of paint. And it was probably in here. I took a deep breath and made up my mind. I went inside. Inside was probably the most disturbing image I have ever seen. I will never be able to get this out of my mind.

Dolls. Dolls filled up the room. Not just the tiny little ones. There were larger ones. They all just stared at me with their piercing red eyes. Up ahead was a giant picture frame. There was no painting there, only white space.

Underneath it, a white ball of paint lay. I went up to claim it. It vanished. My mission was complete.

"That's seven of them…!" I said with success in my voice.

I turned to leave the room. I twisted the doorknob. It didn't twist.

"Huh?" I mumbled.

I kept trying and trying. It wasn't moving.

"No way…" I shouted, angrily. "Why?!"

Suddenly, there was a noise. I stepped back. There was now writing on the door.

"Let's have another treasure hunt," It read. "Who? Who? Who has the key?"

This was great. Absolutely fantastic. I'd have to search through every single doll here for a key out of here.

"What is…" I started.

Out of nowhere, a bell clanged.

"Wh-What?!" I yelled. "What now?!"

The room turned an eerie blue.

"This is bad…" I whispered to myself. "Where… where's the key?!"

The bell clanged again and the hunt began. I searched frantically through the dolls. Picking them up, ripping open their stomachs, throwing them across the room. Where was the key?! I looked up. There was a blue hand on the large picture frame.

I saw a tangled mass of black hair. Axlene, Goddess Of Fear, something was emerging from the painting. With every clang of the bell, it reached out a little more. My searches grew more desperate. No, no, not here, it's not here!

I began to see giant red eyes staring at me through the frame. I turned back to the dolls. I noticed a doll with a fat stomach.

 _Wait! Could this be?!_

I furiously ripped open the stomach and a key fell onto the floor.

"Yes!" I shouted. "They key!"

I wasted no time running out of there. I felt the eyes of every single doll in there turn to me as I left the room. I ran like the wind out of that room. I didn't care if I was already out of the room. I just kept running.

Eventually, I stopped at a door which must have recently just opened. I panted heavily and gasped as I tried to catch my breath.

"I… have had enough… of that _**ROOM**_!" I thundered. "Why did I… have to… deal with that!"

After calming myself down, I was silent for a minute. I was trying to recuperate.

"But, thinking about it…" I considered. "Cat might be in just as terrifying a situation…. We've got to regroup soon!"

I decided to continue my journey.

"Huh…?" I exclaimed. "The door's open…!"

I don't know how, but it was unlocked. I went through. On the other side, I saw an untitled painting. It looked like a drop of water falling into a snake's mouth. I moved on.

"…Stairs…" I mumbled. "I've come this far, but now I'm wondering if I should keep going…"

I was hesitating. Doubting myself. Catherine's life was at risk.

"But I'm not sure what good going back will do…" I said to myself. "What to do?"

Then I thought how selfish I was being. Catherine was out there, with Audrey, who was apparently one of Guertena's paintings. I decided to go on. I couldn't let a girl like Catherine end up hurt. She doesn't deserve that.

"Argh, I'm so indecisive! I'm terrible, really!" I admonished myself. "Just keep moving! There's no other option!"

I closed my eyes for a few seconds. Then I was ready to go.

"…Please, let her be safe!" I shouted.

~Catherine's Point of View~

I saw that the painting of "Tattletale" was moving. The lips were moving as if they were saying something. I moved to hear what it was saying, but couldn't make out the words. Then I realized that Audrey wasn't with me.

She was back there, still on the sea blue rose drawing on the floor. I went back to talk to her. Audrey was silent, acting unusual.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She spoke slowly.

"…No… thing's… wrong," she said.

Then her face took on a sinister change.

"…Aha. What's wrong?" she said, dragging out the syllables. "Whaaat's wrrrooonnnggg?"

I was getting creeped out.

"Ahahahaha, ohohohohoho…" she laughed. "I don't like him… not one bit… Ohohohoho hohohohoho…"

Then she ran off. I went after her. Who was she talking about? Why? I found her in the winding passage where she asked me who I would go with if only two people could leave. I was reconsidering my choice. I found Audrey stabbing a mannequin head with her palette knife.

"In my way…" she repeated. "In my way… In my way… In my _**WAY**_ …"

She kept hacking and slashing at it. It was bleeding from its eyes. I backed away, running from the scene. Audrey caught up to me.

"Cat…" she started.

Then her face turned sad.

"Don't leave me…" she said.

I felt bad and decided to stay with her.

"What were you doing earlier?" I asked.

"Huh…?" she said. "Oh, that was… I'm sorry, I'm not too sure either…"

She had a sad look on her face again.

"I was just…" she answered. "All these feelings suddenly. How do you say it? Came… gushing out? Um… uh…"

Then she smiled.

"Don't worry about it!" she said. "I'll be fine…"

I hoped she felt better. For some reason, she was now walking behind me.

"Why are you walking behind me?" I asked.

"Huh?" she replied. "Why am I staying behind you?"

Then she smiled.

"Well, why not…?" she said. "There's no real reason…"

I couldn't really do anything about it so I just let her.

"Cat, would you…" Audrey asked. "Be friends with me?"

I thought I was already her friend.

"I've… always wanted a girl like me who could be my friend…" she continued. "And I wanna meet your mom, too!"

That last part caught me off guard.

"I mean, I don't even have a dad…" she explained.

This confused me. She had… no parents? Maybe she was an orphan. In any case, I'd always be her friend. Audrey turned to me.

"I love to draw," she said. "I've got lots of crayons. We should draw sometime! I'm pretty good, you see!"

I hadn't drawn with crayons in a while. They were too messy for me. I preferred color pencils, but I didn't tell Audrey that.

"Cat…" she said. "How's this black rose with a white veil look on me?"

"It's cute," I answered.

"Teehee… I'm glad!" she smiled. "I really like it too…"

Then she pointed at my curls.

"Your hair's all cute and curly, Cat!" she said. "I wish I could get my hair like that."

I blushed and thanked her for the compliment.

"Cookies and cream and chocolate and…" Audrey said with glee. "Teehee, so much to eat! I wanna eat all these sweets!"

Come to think of it, it's been hours since I last ate anything.

"Cat, do you know about snow?" Audrey asked.

"I do," I answered. "I see it every year outside my house. My family plays outside and makes snowmen."

"Wow, that's nice!" she said. "It's really cold, right? I read in a book that you can eat it with syrup! I wonder how it tastes…"

To me, it sounded like Audrey never saw snow before. That would be quite a shame. Audrey pointed at my rose.

"Cat, your flower's all pink and pretty…" she said. "Can I touch it?"

I trusted her, so I gave it to her.

"Yaaay, thanks!" she smiled. "It's so pretty…"

Then she put on her serious face.

"But as pretty as roses are, they still have thorns…" she said. "Ah!"

She probably got hurt from a thorn.

"Sorry, Cat," she said. "One of the petals fell off…"

I was a little hurt, but I forgave her. I went over to the vase to bring my rose back to full health.

"I'm tired," I said. "But that we should do our best from here on out."

"Yeah…" she said. "You've been walking around the whole time, huh, Cat? Don't wear yourself out! We have to get out together! We're almost there, so let's keep at it!"

Her cheerful spirit was keeping me on my feet.

"I wanna get out now…" Audrey said. "I'm tired of being here…"

 _So am I Audrey, so am I._

"Ahah… heehee…" she giggled. "We passed by a painting of a clown earlier. So the thing rolling down the stairs was the clown's spit! Ahahahah…"

I guess she tried to lighten the mood with a joke, but strangely, it made me feel a little uncomfortable.

"For an art gallery, there aren't many visitors, huh?" Audrey said. "I wish more people would come…"

I started to explain but she started to talk again.

"I wonder what Roxas is doing now?" Audrey said. "Crying all alone, maybe? I hope we find him soon…"

I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say. Roxas wasn't the bravest person I know, but he wouldn't be… crying alone.

"I hope Roxas is safe," I said.

"…Yes…" she muttered. "That would be… nice."

Then she became serious.

"But if he's not, we'll just have to leave him behind, right?" she smiled. "Just saying…"

I'd hate for it to come to that. I really liked Roxas. I loved him. I'd hate to leave him behind. After all was said and done, Audrey was a sweet girl. She just has extremely high energy. And a little… off. I was a little off sometimes.

I brushed this aside. She was my friend. And I would always be her friend. Together, we checked out the gray room. The gray room wasn't gray anymore. It was filled with color! I looked back to see Audrey's face, but she wasn't in the room with me.

 _Weird, she was right behind me._

I crossed a rainbow, bridging the gap. I picked up the key on the table and looked at the big painting. It was the spectrum. It was "Illusion". I went back over the rainbow and left the room, looking for Audrey. I used the key to unlock a door and went inside.

I saw a painting. It looked like a fish spitting out a drop of water. I tried to go down the stairs, but heard a sound behind me. It was Audrey.

"…Where are you going, Cat?" she asked.

She walked closer.

"Why are you going by yourself?" she asked. "We promised we'd be together…"

There was something different about her. This wasn't the Audrey I knew. Something changed in her ever since that painting told her something. I backed away. She took a step closer.

"…Right?" she smiled.

With every step I took back, she took another closer. Finally, I was up against the wall. I was trapped.

"Why are you running?" she asked.

Suddenly, I heard someone shout my name.

" _ **CAT**_!" they called.

It was Roxas! He ran in between me and Audrey. Audrey gasped. Roxas grabbed her hands.

"Wha…" he said. "What are you doing, Audrey?!"

Audrey's voice turned sour.

"Shut up!" she snapped. "If you had only just been good and waited there!"

"A… Audrey…!" Roxas said. "I knew it, you're…"

I took a closer look and saw that Audrey was holding her palette knife in her hand.

"Stay away!" she wailed. "Yaaah…!"

She fell backwards onto the floor, dropping her rose. Roxas stood there, panting. He looked dead tired. He then turned his attention to me.

"Cat, are you okay?!" he asked. "…Sorry I'm late!"

I was overcome with emotion. Like how Audrey said earlier, my feelings just gushed out. I ran over and hugged him tightly, not wanting to ever let go.

"Whoa!" Roxas stuttered. "C-Cat…"

Then he wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

"Sorry…" he said. "It must have been scary. But it's okay now…"

We finished our embrace. I stepped away.

"You might not believe me, but Audrey…" Roxas said. "She isn't human. She's one of Guertena's works… Just like those painting women who came after us… I didn't spend enough time with her to really notice…"

Even I didn't notice and I spent all this time with her.

"It's dangerous to stay with her," he muttered. "Even if I had just been a little later there…"

Then he turned to me.

"You might feel a bit sorry for her…" he said. "But we need to get away now!"

Roxas held my hand and I held his. We looked at each other's face for a few seconds and knew it was the right thing to do. I looked at Audrey and her rose on the ground.

"This rose…" he said. "It looks real, but it's a fake."

I turned around to take one last look at her. My friend. A tear fell from my eye.

 _Goodbye, Audrey Belrose. My friend._

As we left the room, I noticed something different. Where the red gas was pouring out before, it was gone. I only saw holes on the floor where I guess the gas came from. To our surprise, there was a door there.

This was the only path left to take. We went inside. Inside we saw a large painting titled "Aspiration". It looked like a girl who was sleeping on a crescent moon. It made me feel sleepy, but I knew we had to move on. There was a headless statue blocking a set of stairs.

"Looks like these stairs go down," Roxas noted.

He motioned that he was going to move it.

"Alright, Cat," he said. "Step back."

I listened and watched him move it. It slid as he pushed it.

"Whew…" Roxas said, massaging his arm. "Just how many statues have I pushed today…? Oh well. Let's go!"

We walked down the stairs. Immediately, we saw a drastic change in appearance. The stairs were hot pink and it looked like we were walking across the night sky. As we walked down, a white shooting star passed by.

Then a blue shooting star. At the end of the stairs, there was a crudely drawn path. It was scribbles, but we were able to walk across it. Suddenly, there were drawings of flowers, stars and the sun in crayon. We walked on, unsure of what to think of this new world.

The next area was also a night sky, but it had blue and red stars. A large drop of water with a clown face dropped down. We saw orange and green shooting stars. Then what looked like an axe blade dropped down in front of us.

There was writing on the night sky. It read "Sketchbook" and an arrow pointed to the left. This appeared to be a child's place for drawing. We headed through. As we walked through, Roxas noted where we were.

"Well, now…" he started. "This is a significant change in atmosphere…"

Then he smiled at me.

"But nothing we can't handle," he said. "Let's go, Cat."

With Roxas, I felt like we could take on Maotune. We saw yellow, orange and blue tulips. However, one of the tulips was still a bud.

"Why hasn't this one bloomed, I wonder…" Roxas said, quietly.

There was a house next to it, so we went inside. Like the rest of the area, it was crudely drawn. As if a child drew it. Roxas went to check out the bookcase.

"What?" he said in astonishment. "These are all storybooks…"

The clock on the right side of the room wasn't ticking. There was a portrait in the back of the room, but we couldn't tell who it was. With nothing else to do in here, we left the house. We saw that there was a path leading up from where we walked in, but decided to keep moving left.

We saw more tulips and a sign that read "Bulletin Board". There was a house with an artist's pallet on it, but it was locked. We decided to keep heading left. The other side of the house had a smiling blue face with red eyes.

This door was locked as well. With so many locked doors, I started to feel a little nervous. How were we supposed to move on? Roxas noted that there was a path up, so we walked up. As we walked up, I saw something frightening.

It was me. I saw myself, hanging in the air with a rope around my neck. Roxas was busy looking at a sign that read "Down to Gallery". I didn't want to worry him, so I ignored it and told him I was ready to keep moving.

A sign read "Butterfly Park". There were three yellow butterflies, harmlessly flitting around. The next house was locked as well. Looking closer, we noticed there was some writing.

"There are instructions on the pink building!" it read. "Read them to open this door."

Roxas looked skeptical.

"Such a kind message," he muttered. "It wraps around to suspicious…"

"Yeah…" I agreed. "But it's our only lead."

So, we continued up the path looking for a pink building. There was a white snake with red eyes. I think I remembered seeing a painting of this somewhere back in the gallery. There was another house, deep blue.

It was freezing. The door was frozen shut. We walked to the right side. Here, we saw the most decorated of all areas. It was a house with many flowers and grass bordering it. Unfortunately, it was locked, so we had to keep moving.

We kept along the right side. In the next area, there was a pond. It was a bunch of rough scribbles, but I could tell it was a pond. I put my finger in it. The water was lukewarm. I decided it would be a bad idea to put my rose in there. I stared at it, trying to see my reflection.

"…Cat," Roxas warned. "Make sure you don't fall in while you're spacing out."

Wasn't much else left to do, so we moved along. As we walked down the pink road, I noticed a fork. I looked straight ahead. It went back to where we first started. We moved in a circle, or a square, rather. Realizing we hadn't checked the middle area, we headed left.

It was the pink building! The door was also locked, but there was some writing outside.

"The Pink Key is always kept in the toy box," it read.

Roxas was puzzled.

"The toy box…" he muttered. "I guess there's a key there."

 _Yes, Roxas. That's what the message said._

"Let's find it, Cat!" he suggested.

We went back to the house that told us about the pink building and to our surprise, it was unlocked. We ventured inside. The inside was shoddily drawn. A bunch of red fruits were on the table, nothing important.

We checked out the left side of the room. There was a stuffed Spear-Tailed Bunny and a bucket. Remembering the flower that hadn't bloomed yet, I took the bucket. Perhaps I could give it some water and help it along.

As we turned to leave, he heard the door open. Freezing in place, we stood there holding our breath. There was a familiar voice.

"Cat…" it called out. "Roxas…"

Obreus, God Of Fear, it was Audrey.

"…Where are you?" she asked.

We quietly took a few steps back, our hearts pounding in the silence. Audrey walked forward a bit. We hoped to god that she wouldn't check where we were hiding. She stopped and sighed. Then she ran out of the room.

As soon as we heard her footsteps fade away, Roxas barely made out.

"…Don't tell me…" Roxas said. "That was…"

Then he got deadly serious.

"She's after us…" he told me.

We were going to have to watch our step in here. We ran out of the house. We went to the lake and filled the bucket with water and hurried back to our little friend. When we got there, we saw that the path we came in here through was gone.

We were trapped in this chalk world. Pushing this aside, we went to the little bud. I poured the water from the lake on it and it bloomed. There was something shiny inside it. It was a key. We tried it out at the house with the artist's pallet of colors.

It fit and unlocked the door. When we went in, we saw something strange. On the wall were two drawings. They were of me and Roxas. We were holding our roses. There were also drawings of Audrey and a creepy blue doll holding her rose.

A small box in the middle of the room was labeled "Pandora's Box". I recalled the myth that my divorced parents told me that the Earthlings talk about. Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology, taken from the myth of Pandora's creation in Hesiod's Works and Days.

The "box" was actually a large jar given to Pandora which contained all the evils of the world. Pandora opened the jar and all the evils flew out, leaving only "Hope" inside once she had closed it again.

""Pandora's Box", huh…" Roxas said, contemplating what to do.

If we were going to move on and find a way out, we had to do something. So we decided to open it. It clicked and a whole bunch of colorful symbols formed a circle around the box. Then they dispersed.

"I wonder all that was…" Roxas said with amazement.

He looked back in the box.

"…Ah?" he said. "There's something left in the box."

It was a small mirror.

"A mirror…" he said, apparently recalling the myth as well. "Well, let's just hope it's "hope"."

We chuckled and left the house. We continued to explore the area. There was a new butterfly in "Butterfly Park". It was orange and there was something else odd about it.

"This butterfly has an eye pattern on it…" Roxas observed.

We kept walking around, seeing what else had changed. We went back to the lake, seeing if there was anything different. Staring into the water, there was a sudden brightness. Blinded for a few seconds, we finally opened our eyes.

Shining in the water was a crescent moon. Or its reflection? I wasn't sure. We moved on from there. "Bulletin Board" had a spiral drawn on it. The path from the lake that was empty before was now filled up with trees bearing all kinds of colorful fruit.

There was a single red fruit hanging from an orange tree. Odd… Even stranger and scarier, was what appeared to be someone hanging from the cherry tree. I shuddered and told Roxas we should keep moving.

Back at the house near where we first entered, we looked through the place, seeing if anything changed. One of the books caught Roxas's eye. They were still storybooks, but he noticed something odd.

"Full of stars inside, too," he commented.

Then we left the area. Continuing left, we were back at the place where I saw myself being hanged. It was still there, but I ignored it. We noticed a hidden path in the blackness. It led around behind a sign. There was a cat drawing there.

Strange. We moved on. The very decorated house now had a heart painted on the door. Nothing else was significantly different, so we went to the frozen house. We saw an orange spot on the floor. Could it be…?

It was sunlight. There was a drawing of a sun, shining its rays down on us. It felt a warm. I stood in it for a few moments.

"…Cat," Roxas said, jokingly. "Sunbathing is nice, but we've got to go."

Like always, he got serious again.

"…Or we might not get to see the real sun again," he said.

"I'm tired," I replied. "We should sit in the sunlight for a while."

This whole time, I've been so cold. Everywhere I went, I was shivering with fear. It felt good to feel normal again, even in this fake sunlight. Besides, Roxas looked tired as well. Agreeing with me, we both sat down in the pseudo-sunlight, basking in its warmth.

"Ah, it's warm…" Roxas said, rubbing his arms. "But this is a fake sun, isn't it?"

He closed his eyes.

"I hope we get to see a real sky again soon," he said, sleepily.

"Me too," I agreed. "We've been stuck in this place for far too long."

"I have to say, we've come a long way, us two," he said. "My feet are starting to get sore…"

He sighed.

"See," I smiled. "Aren't you glad I made us stop and take a break?"

"You know, as far as we've managed to come…" Roxas started. "Aren't we headed down? All the stairs go down. Is this a good way to go?"

I started thinking about it too. His logic was making me scared. He saw the look on my face and quickly apologized.

"…Sorry, Cat," he said. "I didn't mean to make you anxious…"

He took my hand and smiled at me.

"Forget I said it, okay?" he said.

"Okiedokie artichokie," I smiled.

Roxas shivered a little, even in the warm light.

"You know," he began. "After seeing all the moving paintings and things jumping out… I'm hardly even surprised to see a moving painting now. Crazy, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't be surprised either," I said. "We've gone through a lot."

"Trick art is nothing special, huh?" Roxas said.

"I guess not," I agreed.

Roxas massaged his ears.

"This place seems to make my ears ring," he complained. "Plus, is it just me? Or does it smell like crayons? Why?"

To me, I smelled a bit of crayons as well. Come on, Roxas. You don't see me whining. I heard Roxas's stomach rumble. He grunted and turned to me.

"Say, Cat…" he said. "Have you heard of macaroons?"

"No," I answered. "But I assume they're Breather Food."

"They're these pastries shaped like hamburgers," he said. "And just the other day, I had one at a café and it was sooo tasty!"

 _Zunbris, God Of Torture, Roxas, my stomach is killing me. Please stop._

"It was really, really good!" he said. "Even the cream wasn't too sweet!"

He went on. Eqphy, Goddess Of Torture I was so hungry now.

"So, uh, if we get out of here, could we go there together?" he asked. "No, wait. We _**WILL**_ be going there. And we will get out! I promise!"

I couldn't tell, but I think I was smiling as well. Did he just ask me out on a date? And agreed for me? Ehh, I was okay with this. I'd love to go out with Roxas for some yummy macaroons! Roxas looked at me.

"Cat?" he asked. "You're holding onto your rose, right?"

I nodded and showed it to him.

"Make sure you don't lose it," he said, making me promise to him not to ever lose my rose. "And don't let anyone else have it! Although… I still wonder, why do we have these roses?"

He thought for a moment.

"…Well," he said. "I recall there was a rose sculpture in the gallery called "Embodiment of Spirit". I wonder if there's a connection there?"

Roxas is such a smart guy. I'd love for him to be my boyfriend.

"I was just thinking why did Audrey come with us?" he asked, scratching his head. "To make fun of us? The more I think about it, the less likely that seems. We don't know very well what she's after… Of course, she may not even have a goal."

Then Roxas shook his head.

"First things first," he said. "I want her to stop chasing us with a palette knife…"

I guess Roxas didn't understand Audrey like I did. I saw her as someone who never got to experience snow, sunlight, a real life. She had nothing I had. Not even parents. It was very sad. Roxas flicked some dust off his coat.

"You saw that stuff flying out of "Pandora's Box" earlier, right?" he asked. "I wonder what it was? Probably not anything good… That would figure."

I recalled all of those cryptic symbols flying out of there.

 _Where did they go?_

Roxas was bored out of his mind so I thought about what we should do next. This mirror, it had to be useful somehow. I stared at it. My face was tired, worn. I was tired, worn. The light from the false sun highlighted these features.

I moved my hand a little and suddenly the light hit my eye.

"Ouch," I whispered.

I put down the mirror on the floor. Then I had the most wonderful idea. I angled the mirror so that the light reflected onto the frozen door. In seconds, the ice melted and it was a pool of water on the floor.

"Ah!" Roxas exclaimed. "The ice on the door melted!"

He looked at the mirror and back at the door.

"I see now…" he said, flashing a smile at me. "You reflected the sunlight. Not too shabby!"

I felt so proud of myself. I bet Roxas was proud of me too. We got up and headed through the door. When we went inside, we were met with a strange ticking noise, like a clock. On the ground in front of us were eight red dots.

Three on the top, two on the middle and three on the bottom and they were connected like a square. We took a closer look and saw they were switches. Before pressing anything, we decided to check out the rest of the room.

At the back of the room appeared to be instructions on the wall. First there was a "Start", and following it were a heart, an eye, a crescent moon, a sun, a star, a green spiral, a red fruit and finally a blue cat. I think we had to press the switches in a specific order.

But what did the symbols mean? Then we realized some of the symbols from "Pandora's Box". They were scattered around. Then we also realized that the switches symbolized the places. It was a map. Thinking hard, we tried to think where we saw the symbols.

I remembered that the really decorated house had a heart on the door. It was in the area to the right of us. And we were currently at the top left side, so I pressed the switch at the top middle. Then I remembered Roxas pointing out the odd butterfly with the eye pattern on its back.

It was the area below us, the middle left. I pressed the switch there. Next was a moon. Where did we see a crescent moon? Then I recalled the blinding light at the lake. I pressed the switch at the top right. Next was the sun.

This was the area we were in right now. I pressed the switch at the top left.

 _Only four more to go._

Next was the star. Roxas noticed some stars in the storybooks in the house near where we came in, so I pressed the switch at the bottom right. A green spiral… The "Bulletin Board". That's where it was. It was right next to the house with the storybooks.

I pressed the bottom middle switch. Two left. A red fruit. That was near the fruit trees, poking out from the orange tree. I pressed the middle right switch. Last one. The cat drawing. I knew where that was. I hurried on over to bottom left button and pushed it.

There was a clink and a key lay on the floor in the middle of all the buttons. Wow, my memory was fantastic. I bet Roxas was jealous. Where would he be without me? We left the house and hurried on to the fancy house with all the flowers.

The door opened with a click. We went inside. The house wasn't so fancy on the interior. It was mostly white space with a few pink lines. At the back of the room was a blue drawing labeled "Toy Box". Roxas had a surprised look on his face.

"This is the toy box?" Roxas gasped. "It's rather big. But at any rate."

We peered into the blackness within.

"It said there was a key in there," Roxas said.

He blinked a few times.

"I can't say I see the bottom," he said. "Is there really a key in there, I wonder?"

Suddenly, we heard a noise behind us.

"Wanna see?" said a sweetly-sinister voice.

Roxas gasped. I felt small hands forcefully push us in. We fell into the darkness, falling into the horrors within. I closed my eyes and wished everything would be alright. When I awoke, I was startled by what I saw.

There were drawings on the floor everywhere. There were dolls and mannequin heads and many other things everywhere. This was Audrey's toy box. I clutched my arm. I was hurt. I searched for my rose. It wasn't here.

I looked around. Neither was Roxas. I only saw petals laying around me. I was weak. But I had to find my rose. And I had to find Roxas. I got up, my legs buckling beneath me. I could barely walk. As I limped up from where I landed, I took note of Roxas's drawings on the floor.

There were train tracks and a blue person lay splattered and crushed on the tracks. I continued up, following a trail of red petals. Up ahead, I saw it. There it was. My rose. I picked it up gingerly. There was a single petal left on there.

I carried it with me carefully, preventing any harm from coming to it. Now I had to look for Roxas. I saw stairs leading out of here in the back of the room, but they were blocked by two large dolls. Oh please, let Roxas still be in this room.

I walked to the right side of the room. Nothing here. As I was walking down, I saw a familiar figure lying on the floor.

"Roxas!" I gasped, rushing over to him.

"Oof," he grunted.

He slowly started to get up.

"Oww… ugh," he groaned. "I hit my head…"

When he fully stood up, he bent down and looked at me.

"Cat…" he asked. "Are you okay?"

My body ached and I felt like I could collapse any second. But I didn't want him to worry.

"I'm fine," I lied.

His eyes lit up.

"Ah!" he said. "That's good… At any rate…"

He looked around.

"This place is full of scribbles…" Roxas said. "Is this the toy box? We fell in from the upper floor…"

Then he was quiet.

"…after she pushed us…" he said.

Audrey pushed us. It was her. How could she? Roxas got serious.

"…Well," he suggested. "Let's look for the key and get out!"

That's right, there was a key in here! We started to search. Around where Roxas fell was a drawing of a clown. It looked like the painting that we saw back in the gallery. Our search was starting to feel futile after a few minutes. Then I remembered something.

"The last door that needed to be unlocked was the pink house," I said. "Logically, it would require a pink key."

Roxas agreed with my theory. We scoured though the pink drawings. On the pink kitty drawing, there it was. The key. Our way out. We picked it up. Suddenly, the room began to get dark.

"Wh-What?" Roxas said, nervously. "I don't like this… It's just like before…"

Then the room shook. The dolls, mannequin heads and statues sprang to life. I could sense their malevolence, their evil intentions, focused on us.

"Wahhh!" Roxas shouted. "What's with these guys?!"

He gave me a final warning.

"Cat…" he said. "Be careful!"

Then they started coming after us. They were everywhere. Nowhere was safe. We made a straight-out blitz for the exit. Using whatever strength we had left, we made a mad dash for the exit, dodging, evading, weaving in and out.

We saw the exit. We made it. We barely made it. The next area was silent. It was the night sky again. Only this time, the stars were light blue and the moon was red. As we followed the path, we saw drawings of black roses.

It was Audrey. It had to be. As we walked up the stairs, the path began to take on a reddish tint. We were back on the first floor of the house. Roxas gasped.

"Did…" he said. "Did this room change?"

The room wasn't white anymore. It was black as night. And the toy box was gone. There were now green vines from black roses blocking the stairs. There were pointy thorns, too.

"Thoroughly blocked…" Roxas noted. "Telling us not to go up, then? Got to get through them somehow…"

We thought for a moment. We couldn't risk getting hurt from the thorns. If we sustained any more injuries, we would surely perish.

"Roxas, burn them," I said. "These aren't like the stone thorny vines from before."

"Burn them…" he contemplated. "Yes… I suppose that'll work."

He chuckled.

"It completely slipped my mind even though I have a lighter…" he said, taking out his lighter. "All right… Let's burn these!"

He clicked the lighter. Instantly, the vines ignited. They burst into flames and melted away.

"Success!" he said with glee. "It worked, Cat!"

I was happy too, but I was also worried about what awaited us at the top of the stairs. We took a glance at each other, took a deep breath and went up. We stopped at the top of the stairs. It seemed to be a long hallway in front of us.

"Hm? This room…" Roxas muttered. "This isn't the toy box… is it?"

"Axlene, Goddess Of Fear," I said. "I hoped not."

I couldn't stand another round in there. Then Roxas noticed something.

"More importantly…" he started, pointing into the distance. "See that, Cat? The painting on the far wall."

I couldn't quite see it from here so we had to move up.

"I think I've seen it before," Roxas said. "Let's take a look."

We took a few steps forward. We stopped when we heard footsteps behind us. Bursting from the staircase was Audrey.

"Who's there?!" she shouted.

Roxas gasped in astonishment. Audrey was quiet.

"…Catherine, Roxas…" she whispered. "You're both okay…?"

Then her face was angry.

"How did you get into this room?!" she said, dangerously. "Leave."

"Audrey…" Roxas said, nervously. "You…"

"Don't take another step!" she shouted.

Roxas was stunned.

"Wha…?!" he asked.

Audrey took a step closer.

"Leave right now!" she ordered.

She whipped out her palette knife, waving it in the air.

"Now!" she screamed. " _ **NOW NOOOW**_!"

Thick, red cracks in the ground appeared beneath her feat, stretching out far.

" _ **LEEEEE**_ eee _ **EEE**_ ee _ **AVE**_!" Audrey screamed.

Then she ran toward us. There was a furious anger burning in her eyes. Roxas took my hand and we began to run. We didn't dare look behind us. We ran all the way to the end of the room. There, we saw a painting that was ripped in such a way as though someone burst out of it.

Roxas brandished his lighter.

"There's no other option!" he yelled.

He clicked it.

"Cat…!" Audrey shrieked. "Please! _**STOP**_!"

"I'm sorry Audrey," I said.

The painting ignited. Glass shot out from the frame.

"Waugh!" Roxas shouted.

Audrey stopped moving. She sank to her knees. A low moan escaped from her lips.

"Ah…!" she howled. " _ **NOOO**_ …!"

She fell backwards. The picture frame became an ashen black. She, too, burned with the frame. She crumbled into black dust before my eyes.

 _Goodbye, Audrey Belrose._

Roxas was silent. He panted.

"I have… to say…" he started. "Girls… sure can be scary…"

Truer words have never been spoken. He stood up straight.

"Well, anyway…" he said, "It burned up a lot more violently than I expected."

I guess he didn't think too much about Audrey. He turned his attention to my body.

"Are you okay, Cat?" he asked. "The glass shattered, after all."

I looked at myself.

"Nope," I said. "I'm fine."

However, I noticed that Roxas's hand was bleeding and felt hungry.

"Is your hand okay?" I asked, not wanting to feed on my friend.

"…Hm? My hand?" he asked. "Oh, you're right, I cut it… I didn't even notice… It must have just happened."

"Silly Roxas," I giggled. "How could you not notice something like that?"

"…Well," he smiled. "It's just minor."

To me, it looked delicious. I didn't want to hurt him, though. I pulled out my handkerchief. This was the handkerchief I got for my birthday. I decided he needed it more than I did.

"Ah, a handkerchief…" he said. "May I use it?"

"Yes," I smiled.

"Isn't this real lace?" Roxas asked, delicately wiping his cut with it. "Well, I don't particularly wanna tarnish this…"

The blood seeped through and diffused.

"Too late," he said, quietly. "Unfortunately."

Stuffing it in his pocket, he turned to me.

"Oh well," he sighed. "I'll borrow this anyway. Thanks, Cat."

"You're welcome, Roxy," I smiled.

"Well…" he said with cheer. "Let's get going!"

That's right! We can keep going on now! Before we left, we decided to look around a bit more. Audrey's palette knife lay on the floor.

"She really…" he muttered. "Wasn't human after all…"

Some blue dolls were lying on the floor. When I went to go look at them, Roxas stopped me.

"I've had enough of these…" he said. "Don't touch it, Cat."

I guess he really doesn't like dolls. The inscription below the burnt picture read "Audrey Belrose". She really was a painting after all.

"A bit late," Roxas asked. "But was it wise to torch one of Guertena's paintings? If it was the real deal, it _**WAS**_ worth a fortune, wasn't it? Like I said, a bit late."

There were some books lying around. Roxas flipped through them.

"Are these… books about candy?" he asked, quietly. "And these… storybooks. "How to Make Friends"?"

There were drawings and pictures lying around. I saw something written in crayon.

"I like the visitors coming in to live with me," it read. "But… I wanna leave this place myself and live outside! But unless I take the place of someone from outside, it seems I can't do that… Won't somebody come soon? Won't somebody come soon…"

Roxas was about to comment.

"…This is…" he said.

He didn't finish. I felt sorry for Audrey. I truly did. All she wanted was to be a real girl, to live in the real world. For all these years, ever since Guertena's death, she was trapped in this warped world. She was eternally condemned to a life without friends, without real people.

A life without true happiness is no life at all. I loved her like a sister. And she loved me too. I know that. The way her eyes looked after listening to the secret the lips spoke. They were scared. She was afraid to lose me.

I was her only friend. My heart was broken, bruised, beaten and burned along with Audrey. Even though she came after us with a knife, I understood her. The pain she felt. The crushing loneliness. Like a thousand steely daggers piercing your soul, cutting, slicing away, until there's nothing left.

This was what Audrey felt. This is what no person should ever feel. I laid my thoughts to rest. This was my final goodbye. Farewell, Audrey Belrose. Perhaps in another time, you'll find what you were looking for.

You'll always be in my stone heart. I'll never forget you. We were ready to leave. We walked back across the hall and down the stairs. We left the house and went down to the pink house. The key fit and we went inside.

There was a staircase and we went down. There was a dramatic change in scenery. It became very dark.

"Whoa…" Roxas said. "It's dark. Watch your step, Cat."

We carefully walked down the stairs. At the end of it, we followed the path through. We entered the next area.

"This place looks familiar," Roxas said.

It did. It looked like the entrance to the museum! It was an exact replica. I looked to Roxas and he looked to me. For once, we would take our time and enjoy the art gallery. I took him to all the paintings and notices I didn't understand before. He read to me the notice near the big fish.

"Welcome to the World of Guertena," Roxas read. "We truly thank you for attending today. We're currently holding an exhibition for the great artist Weiss Guertena. We hope you deeply enjoy the art of the late Guertena, whose creations carry such mystery and beauty both."

He read the title of the painting next to it. "A Well-Meaning Hell". I still didn't understand it. He read the title of the big fish.

""Abyss of the Deep"," he read. "A world where man will never stand. To realize that world, I decided that I would engrave it within the canvas."

Thank you for that, Guertena. We went down to the rose sculpture. Roxas read the title.

""Embodiment of Spirit"," he read. "Beautiful at a glance, but if you get too close, it will induce pain. It can only bloom in wholesome bodies."

Now I understood. We moved on to the next paintings. Down the hall was a row of exhibits which I didn't understand before. Roxas courteously read them aloud to me. "Twinkling of Crystals and Stars". We moved on up through the hallway.

He read all the paintings on the wall aloud.

""Serpent Spirit"," he read. ""Glass of Antipodes". "Horizon View". "Beach Isolation"."

I still didn't understand them, but I was impressed with Roxas's vocabulary. Having seen all the paintings here, we returned to the entrance and went up the stairs. One of the paintings I didn't understand had "Towers" as the second word.

Roxas read it and told me the first word was "Couplet". I thought for a minute. Like "couple"? I shrugged and pulled him to the next one I didn't understand.

"Still Life on Table," he read.

He told me this was a kind of style of art where painters paint something like a bowl of fruit on a table. I thought that was boring. We moved on. The next one he read was "Misshapen Diamond". Now that I look at it, it does look like a weird shape. The next painting was a hard one.

""Spectacle of Century's End"," he read.

This was the painting that the old couple was looking at. I giggled. Maybe it was their hundredth anniversary. The big pink ball with swords sticking in it was "Wariness" according to Roxas. It was too abstract for my taste.

The sculpture of the blue woman was called "Fusion". Roxas said that it meant to combine things. But that's weird. I didn't see anything being combined. The kitty painting read "Your Dark Figure". It was still cute though.

We went through the hall. It was the painting that started it all. All the weird things that began happening started when I looked at it. Yet, it looked different. It was different than when I last saw it. I read the title.

""? World"," I read. "Once you go in, there's no going back. All your time here will be lost. Will you still jump in?"

I still didn't understand the first word.

"What's this big mural?" I asked.

"The "Fabricated World"?" he muttered. "Hey, isn't that… The former gallery?"

I looked at it and I couldn't really remember where we were before. He began to get excited.

"Does that mean…" he asked. "If we jump into this, we'll go back there?!"

Then he stopped and thought.

"But how are we meant to jump into a painting?" he contemplated.

Suddenly, lights began flashing.

"Wh-What?!" Roxas gasped.

The lights flashed once more and there was a sound.

"Cat, look!" Roxas said, pointing. "The frame!"

It was gone! Vanished. He looked at me.

"Now might be our chance!" he said.

He took a step back and made a dash at the painting. He jumped in.

"Yes! I'm really in!" he exclaimed. "Hurry up, Cat!"

I reached out and began to pull myself up. Then I heard a voice.

"Cat…" it called out.

I heard a footstep. I stopped. Roxas was incredulous.

"Cat, what's wrong?" Roxas asked. "Come on!"

He didn't hear the voice?

"Catherine!" said the voice. "I finally found you!"

It was my mother. It was really her.

"Sheesh…" she said. "I was looking everywhere! Don't just go running off places on your own!"

Then she smiled.

"Your father's waiting for you too, see?" she said. "Let's go, Catherine!"

She beckoned me to come. Roxas's voice reverberated in the air.

"Cat, hey, what are you doing?!" he asked. "Hurry up and come over!"

He sounded worried. I turned back to my mother.

"Catherine!" she yelled. "How many times have I told you? Don't go following strangers!"

 _But he's my friend._

"Hey, it's not scary, okay?" Roxas said. "You'll be fine!"

I turned and looked at him. He was beyond the painting. My mother yelled at me again.

"Catherine, listen to your mother!" she ordered. "Don't go with some stranger! Do you wanna never see your mother and father again?"

 _No… No I didn't want that._

I heard a noise and saw that Roxas was kneeling. He offered his hand.

"Cat!" Roxas called. "I'll pull you over!"

My mother walked a few steps closer with an outstretched hand.

"Come with me…" she said.

"Grab my hand…" Roxas said.

" _ **CAT**_!" they said simultaneously.

I was torn. What do I do? My family or Roxas? A thousand swirling thoughts inside my mind. I took a deep breath and thought. I calmed myself. Wait, could this even be my real mother? What if she was fake?

But she certainly seemed real… Acted real too… But if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that Roxas was real. So I chose him. I took his hand.

"Alright!" he exclaimed, pulling me in.

There was sudden bright light and we fell in.

-POINTLESS SCENE TRANSITION-

(Art Gallery)

What happened? My head hurt. I looked behind me. It was a mural. "? World". Darn, I didn't know the first word. I shrugged and walked out to see more paintings. Someday, when I'm bigger, I'll learn more words.

I remember looking at the pamphlet my dad showed me from the gallery. One of the main exhibits was a giant fish! I ran to it and saw that it was crowded. It looked really cool, like it was actually real. I thought it would eat me.

I ran, giggling from the drawing. The next sculpture I saw was really pretty. It was a pink rose. There was someone there, staring at it. He was super cute. He had spiky dirty blonde hair and a black leather coat. When I was looking at him, he turned around.

"Hm?" he said. "What is it, little lady?"

"What are you looking at?" I asked.

"Hm?" he said, quietly. "Well, let's see… It's a rose sculpture, I guess."

He turned back to it.

"When I look at this sculpture," he began. "I feel somehow sorrowful. I wonder why?"

I wondered why too. He turned around again and his eyes met mine.

"…Ah," he said. "I'm sorry if I said anything to trouble you, Catherine…"

What?! How did he know my name? He had a confused look on his face.

"Wait, what?" he asked. "Who's Catherine?"

"I'm Catherine," I told him. "Cat for short!"

"What?" he asked, scratching his head. "That's your name? Your name's really Catherine? That's the strangest thing. I mean, I don't know you at all. It just kinda came out. How odd. But… actually… Have we, perhaps, met somewhere before?"

I thought for a minute and didn't recall anything.

"My, look at me," he said, shaking his head. "Asking you such strange things. Never mind what I said. Well, bye."

Suddenly, he stopped. He gasped. He was feeling his pocket. He pulled out… a handkerchief? Wait, that looks like my handkerchief! I reached in my pocket, but it wasn't there.

"What's this?" he gasped. "A handkerchief? When did I get this?"

"That's mine…" I said.

"Ah…" he asked. "This is yours?"

I showed him my proof.

"My word, it's true," he said. ""Catherine". Your name's right on it. But why is it in my pocket?"

Then he looked a little grossed out.

"Plus, there's blood on it…" he said, disgusted.

Suddenly, there was a rapid flash of memory in my mind. I gasped. I remembered. I remembered everything. Roxas gasped as well. Roxas… his name was Roxas!

"I was…" he said. "I was wounded. On the hand… and…"

Then his face turned white.

"A girl…" he said. "A vampire girl gave me her handkerchief…"

He must have remembered now, too!

"Yes…" he said. "This handkerchief was given to me as a gift. It was a gift…"

Then he looked into my eyes.

"From Catherine!" he said.

He stepped forward to hug me. Tears were streaming down our eyes, remembering all that had happened, all that we had gone through.

"Cat, I remember now," he said. "We were together back there. How could I have forgotten?"

He brought his palm to his face.

"It was so important!" he said. "We stuck together through that bizarre gallery. Chased by strange statues. And Audrey too, right?"

I nodded.

 _Audrey… Poor Audrey._

"Cat, do you remember?" he asked.

"I remember everything," I replied.

"Oh thank goodness!" he exclaimed. "There's so much more I wanna talk about, but I've got to get going."

He looked at his watch and prepared to leave.

"Ah, uh, Cat," he stuttered. "Is it all right if I keep this handkerchief a while longer? It wouldn't do to return it as it is."

He felt the bloodstained lace cloth with his thumbs.

"I'll have to…" he said. "Make it clean and then give it back."

Then he turned to leave.

"Because…" Roxas smiled. "We will see each other again!"

"I got it for my birthday," I said. "Be sure to give it back to me."

He nodded and hurried out of the museum. I knew his words were true. I knew I would see him again. Fate brought us together in the Fabricated World and it can surely bring us together in the real world. I found my divorced parents.

"I'm ready to leave," I said. "I'm hungry."

"Who are you hungry for?" Dracula asked.

"I wanna try someone called Organization XIII," I answered.

Original Story:

Ib

Developed by:

kouri verl

Adapted by:

ZelinkSupporter


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